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VIA 


MORALIS VINCENDI, 


OR TIIE 


ORIGIN, BASIS, PSYCHOLOGY, 


A\I) 


ELEMENTS OE DUTY 

Y 3 



r 




r 


/■ 


BY WILLIAM W: GREEN. 


*» 



R. J. OMPHANT, JOB PRINTER, BOOK BINDER AND STATIONER. 

1885 . 






Copyright entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by 
William W. Green, author, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Wash¬ 
ington, 1). C. 




Vvi.U.C 


TABLE OF CONTENTS BY CHAPTERS. 


CT" 

6 


2 


f 


PART I. GENERAL DUTIES. 

1 Dedication. 

2 Preface. 

I. The true foundation of morals is the divine law revealed, or indicated by 

the physical, mental and psychical constitution of man. 

II. Office of moral philosophy and classification of human duties. 

III. The duty of the improvement of time, health, &c., time the basis of all 

achievement. 

IY. Of motives. 

Y. Of the duty of diligence and parental duty to the young. 

YI. The duty of self-knowledge aud self-culture. 

YII. The duty of the support of institutions. 

YIII. Three fundamental rules of limitation, and tests of duty in any case or 
contingency. 

IX. Duty to one’s self as a corporal and psychical being. Care, temperance 

and moderation in all things. 

X. Of sexual love and the duties incideut to the family relation. 

XI. Duty in the educational relations. 

XII. Social duties. 

XIII. Duties of children and dependants or inferiors or employees. 

XIY. Business duties of employers, &c. 

XY. The morals of timeliness. 

XYI. Duty to our neighbor and neighborhood. 

XYII. The citizens duty to his native or adopted land, to the State and his 
fellow-citizens as such. 

XYIII. Benevolence an instinct; beneficence a duty; man’s duty to man 
everywhere. 

XIX. Conscience the instinct of right and justice; universality of duty. 

XX. The propensities, instincts and affections have laws and limitations. Their 

sphere and objects. 

XXI. Pleasure and pain, grief and mental agony dependant on obedience to or 

violation of their laws. The beneficence of God. 



IV. 


CONTENTS. 


XXII. Of the duty of practice and discipline of faculty. 

XXIII. Of kindred vices and virtues. 

XXIY. Of true morality and its basis—a summary of the fundamental princi¬ 
ples of this work. 

XXY. Of God and his Providence; of predestination through divine law and 
human free will, and of prayer. 

XXYI. Of solitude, society and happiness. 


PART II. SPECIES OF VICES AND VIRTUES. 


XXYII. Of the instinct of accumulation in virtuous or vicious activity. 

XXYIII. The love of commendation or of fame as vice or virtue. 

XXIX. Self-esteem, self-respect or ambition, virtuous or vicious. 

XXX. Of the instinct of fear or caution—prudence a virtue or timidity a vice. 
XXXL The spirit of resistance or combat—its virtuous or vicious action. 
XXXII. Firmness, fortitude, perseverance, or waywardness and obstinacy. 
XXXIII The instinct of anger or destruction, its right or wrong action. 
XXXIY. OPsecretiveness or the instinct to conceal—its follies, decencies and 

vices. 


XXXY. Of attachment or friendship, wise, or wicked, or dangerous. 

XXXYI. Of love of offspring, virtuous or foolish and criminal. 

XXXYII. Of the sense of the sublime and beautiful. 

XXXYIII. Of intellect and curiosity—its virtuous or moral and vicious action. 
XXXIX. Of observation, perception, memory and reading and duties therein. 
XL. Of the duty ot judgment and the faculty of reason and the knowlegde of 
causation. 


XLI. Of self-love and selfishness. 

XLII. Of the temptation and fall. 

XLIII. Man’s inevitable and evitable destiny ; God’s service ; man’s respon¬ 
sibility. 



DEDICATION. 


This book on the Law of Morals, is, with the profound 
respects of the author, dedicated to that exemplary Christian 
citizen, conceded leader of the bar of the State of New 
York, the eminent and just Judge, who, by his learning in the 
law of the land and his probity and right application of the 
elementary principles of justice, in a long life of practice at the 
bar, and as a Judge in cases in the Court of Appeals of the State 
of New York, has established stable rules and interpretations of 
legal justice, and achieved a fame rivalled by few and excelled 
by none—The Honorable George F. Comstock. 



PREFACE. 


This book, with its brief chapters, is not intended to be 
an exhaustive system, of casuistry imagining or stating cases and 
applying to them the principles of morality, and deducing 
therefrom the case-law of morals, or what one ought to do or 
refrain from doing, in each particular case. Moral cases, like 
the cases in equity or law, are infinite in variety, and in circum¬ 
stances unlike. The subject of morals, so treated, would not 
be exhausted in any indefinite number of volumes, and could 
produce only works for reference; which few but the very 
rich could purchase, and none but men of literary leisure could 
afford to read. 

The design of this book, is simply and briefly to ascertain 
and declare the true foundation and origin of morals or duty, 
and elaborately, perhaps, to state and illustrate such of the first 
principles of sound morals, as may be readily applied by man in 
the practical government of his instincts and affections, and may 
easily guide him through all the customary or extraordinary affairs 
and offices of daily life, to a well earned prosperity, happiness, 
honor and eminence in this world and to God and Heaven. 

Whether the writer is or is not conversant with ancient or 
modern works on Moral Philosophy, can little concern the 
public, but the reader will see, that without repeating and com¬ 
batting the errors of others, the author has wrought out a con¬ 
sistent and harmonious system of morals, without direct refer¬ 
ence to the works of other moralists or their systems. 

Having given much study and reflection to the subject 
during a life time, as indeed every man and woman must do, 
who has any aspiration beyond the lowest one of getting a living 
and pampering one’s self, the line of his studies, and their con¬ 
clusions, are briefly noted down in these pages, exhibiting at 
least some originality of view as to the origin, scope and true 
fundamental principles of the vast field of morality, and in- 



PREFACE. 


Vll. 


augurating a system plain, clear, definite, just and liberal, yet 
one that cannot be lived up to without thought and a high 
degree of vigilance and diligence. 

The fundamental theory of this book is, that all the obliga¬ 
tions of duty, like all the laws of physics, are ordained of God, 
and that each law of duty has its genesis in the God-ordained 
constitution of man and his relations to other things and beings, 
and that both are indicated and to be studied in the instinctive, 
affectional, mental, moral, spiritual and devotional nature of 
man, and in the light of the relations in which he is providen¬ 
tially placed and lives, and of which he is in some degree the 
author. 

It is practically of far more momentous consequence, that 
man has ever before him the entire field of duty in his human 
and divine relations, and sound general rules and principles to 
guide him by their easy application in the contingencies of life, 
than that he should have or keep at hand any voluminous 
casuistical reasonings with their innumerable conclusions. 

If the writer has succeeded in any degree in attaining his 
object, and has so arranged and expressed his ideas as to formu¬ 
late such rules and principles, and attract and hold the attention 
of readers generally from his first to and through his concluding 
chapters, he is not without hope that his work may do some 
good in the world; and whether it receive the plaudits which 
every writer aspires to, or not, if it is but effective to do good 
to its readers, its author will be content. If, on the other hand, 
it shall return any considerable gains to the author or publisher, 
the fact will be peculiarly grateful, because, that very fact, 
taken in connection with the character of the work, will furnish 
the most convincing proof of its merit, and that it is doing and 
has done a good work. 

Having distributed the virtues and vices into classes and 
© 

genera, and these again into species, the chapters of Part I of 
the work, treat only of them by class and genera, and the gene¬ 
ral duties and principles, or tests of duty. Part II, from 
chapter 27 to 43 inclusive, treats of some of them by species, that 
is to say, treats of each several instinct, propensity, affection and 
spiritual or moral faculty and the intellect, in its several spheres 
and right and duly limited action as such, constituting a distinct 


Vlll. 


PREFACE. 


virtue, and yielding its appropriate pleasure; and of the excess 
or perversion of each, as constituting vice, and effective to pro¬ 
duce their proper penalties of re-action, revulsion, grief, loss, 
outlawry, disease or death. As Part I strives to answer the 
questions, what are the bases, origin and general principles of 
the Moral Law and the classes and genera of duties; so Part II, 
strives to answer the question what are the species of virtue and 
vice, or the special office and law of each instinct, affection and 
faculty, except the several mental faculties, which pertains more 
to mental philosophy than to morals. The whole is designed to 
teach the general principles of victory in life’s warfare and to 
indicate the honorable path to prosperity, felicity and eminence. 


CHAPTER I. 


THE TRUE FOUNDATION OF MORALS IS THE DIVINE 
LAW AND LAW-GIVER. 

The fundamental principle of morals as well as of religion, 
is briefly, that there is a God, 1 a Divine Creative, constitutive, 
and all ruling power, by whom all things are created, con¬ 
stituted and governed. The name of this Power, Jah, Je¬ 
hovah, Jove, Jupiter, Brahma, Allah, God, or under whatever 
name he ma}^ be substantially or essentially recognized, is of 
less consequence than a recognition of Him, as He really is in all 
His attributes or in His relations to us. Diverse as is the recog¬ 
nition of his attributes by the barbarous and civilized peo¬ 
ples, and by the ignorant or the cultivated races of mankind, 
yet the universal belief of mankind attests the existence of a 
creative and all ruling power—for which and its laws, evolution 
is but a new name—the miracle of the creation, the materiality 
and evanescence of the visible and known in its every con¬ 
stituted form and the existence, infinity and eternity of an 
unknowable, immutable, invisible Supreme Being ! 1 

All science establishes that there are fixed laws of the 
universe and all that it contains, unchanged if not also unchange¬ 
able so far as man has been able to discover. 2 The existence of 
laws implies a law-giver, and their constancy implies His im¬ 
mutability. Whether this invisible power, the great first cause, 
produces effects by one volition impressed forever upon nature, 
material, or immaterial, or spiritual, or by a continuous unceas¬ 
ing exertion of the divine omnipresent will, is a curious specu¬ 
lation of <no practical moment; for, if that will usually or in¬ 
variably operates under like conditions and circumstances, the 
same results, this rule of divine action by and on matter and 


10 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


mind, is for all human purposes, God’s law of mind or matter 
for mankind, to conform to or to violate, thereby derogating 
from or consummating his own prosperity and felicity or those 
of his associates. 

Law is thus a rule of action impressed by the Supreme 
ruler upon or inhering in mind and matter, things material or 
things immaterial, things visible and things spiritual, things 
concrete or things abstract, 3 or whatsoever else he has created or 
permits to be made. It is self-evident that whatever is not 
self-existent or eternal must have been created or constituted, 
and the modern theories of evolution, when they seek to reach 
the ultimate cause of things, come but to the unknowable or 
God, whom finite intelligences can but imperfectly compre¬ 
hend. And it is equally self-evident, that whatever has been 
or may be constituted, has and must have a law of its con¬ 
stitution, existence and decay. We have no knowledge of 
any material thing that has not impressed upon it its law 
of existence, growth, preservation or continuance, decay or 
dissolution. Even abstract entities, like governments and cor¬ 
porations chartered by human law, exist by conformity to 
law natural as well as civil, or perish by violation of 
either. 4 We have no authority for a belief that the soul or 
spirit, the mind or the affections of man are free from the obli¬ 
gation of their own special law or system of laws. On the 
other hand the very existence of mental and moral philosophy, 
of sanity and insanity, and psychology in all ages, admits and 
recognizes the existence of laws applicable thereto, and capable 
of interpretation by man. And in truth and fact, every in¬ 
stinct propensity and faculty lias had, has and will continue to 
have a law of its existence, development, disease, decadence or 
aggrandizement. And as there is a law of the lake, the river 
and ocean, of the waters above and the waters below the firma¬ 
ment, and as law rules the growth and decline of visible things, 
so law must and does rule invisible realities, also, like the soul, or 
spirit, or spiritual elements of the psychical constitution of man. 
All these laws man is free to ignore or to know. For 
everything that is, there must not only be a divine law of 
its existence, but it must be a constant and unchanging 
one or system, or anarchy, confusion and chaos exist—law 


11 


TRUE FOUNDATION OF MORALS, ETC. 

that by its constancy is discoverable by the mind of man or is 
revealed to him ; or he, the only intelligent earthly creature of 
God, must dwell forever in a chaos of confusion, doubt and un¬ 
certainty, the gloom of which no human intellect can penetrate, 
unless there be momentary special revelations of the divine 
will, to the whole human race. The latter condition certainly 
is not and never has been the condition of nature or of man. 
The world of mind, of matter, of business, of government, of 
physics or metaphysics, of substance or of soul, cannot be and 
has not been a realm of blind accident or of even divine 
caprice, or of constantly recurring miracle or miraculous reve¬ 
lation. The wisdom of Solomon, of Socrates and Plato, and 
Seneca and Cicero, is also the wisdom of to-day. 5 Miracle is ex¬ 
ceptional, but law has been and must be constant. Miracle 
may sanction a revelation, but law, capable through its con¬ 
stancy of discovery and formulation by finite intelligences, must 
be universal. And it does everywhere rule and has ruled all 
created and constructive things concrete and abstract. 

In conformity or obedience to the divine law of their ex¬ 
istence consists the life and perpetuity of all that is : in non¬ 
conformity or disobedience its decline, decay, dissolution or 
death. And this is the primary fundamental law of penalty 
against non-conformity and disobedience Such was the pen¬ 
alty denounced against disobedience at the very day of man’s 
creation, and it is written in letters of light not only in his 
physical, but also in his mental, moral and religious constitu¬ 
tion. So by sin, wdiich is a disobedience of the moral law of 
God, came death premature and abnormal into a sinless and 
law-obeying world, and so sin and error have been until very 
recently, shortening from generation to generation the patri¬ 
archal and ante-diluvian term of human life. 

As ignorance and disregard of physical laws afflict with 
disease and death of material living things and of man’s ma¬ 
terial body, so willful or ignorant violation of the moral or spir¬ 
itual laws of man’s nature and psychical constitution, not only 
affect for ill the body, but must more vitally affect the soul and 
bring premature and penal debility, decrepitude, disease and 
death to the soul or spirit of man. 


12 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


The fulfillment of all duty in morals is to study, learn and 
obey the law of man’s constitution or nature, and of his rela¬ 
tions to the external world material and spiritual, temporal and 
eternal. Without knowledge of and careful conformity to 
laws inhering in the nature' and constitution of things ma¬ 
terial, whether existing in nature or fabricated by man, all 
these decay and perish. Wealth takes wings and is dissipa¬ 
ted, governments become oppressive, corrupt, anarchical, effete 
or vain, and are overthrown, states flourish then decline, 
totter into decrepitude and perish, whole nations enervate and 
corrupt and are swept away. The law of nature and of nature’s 
God is for all existences the survival and domination of that or 
them which in their kind retain the highest fitness, through due 
conformity to His higher law of vigor and health, to do his 
work or effect his purpose. 6 And as between the creator and 
his moral and intelligent creatures, whom he has created lords 
of all other things, this conformity to law is duty, and the 
moral law has reference to those duties, and distinguishes right 
from wrong, and is the ^interpretation and formulation of the 
rule of right and of man’s duty in his every condition and re¬ 
lation and wheresoever he may be. 7 This rule of right or di¬ 
vine moral law is co-extensive with whatsoever in man’s mental, 
moral or psychical constitution is capable of right use, or of 
abuse, or injury to one’s self or another. 


CHAPTER II. 

CLASSIFICATION OF HUMAN DUTIES-OFFICE OF 

MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 

Duties are, in general, of two genera, the one positive, and 
the other negative. The negative class of duties demands that 
we should not think and do certain thoughts or deeds, but ab¬ 
stain from thinking and doing them—the things forbidden be¬ 
ing perversions, excesses or misdirection of desire, instinct, fac¬ 
ulty or power. These are duties of restraint and self-denial. 
The positive class of duties, on the other hand, demands activi- 



13 


CLASSIFICATION OF HUMAN DUTIES, ETC. 

ties right and normal, of every instinct, affection, faculty or 
moral and spiritual power, according to its right object, sphere 
and function, followed by appropriate corporal acts. And gen¬ 
erally, in order to enthrone the moral and spiritual faculties in 
their rightful supremacy, they require special culture to ad¬ 
vance their activity, promptitude and power. 

Man’s <soul nature, and relations are triune. In the image 
of the triune God was he created. 

He has instincts, appetites, affections common to all other 
mammals, indispensable to his physical existence and protection, 
and to the perpetuation of the human race upon the earth, that 
may become exalted into domineering and noxious passions, 
and also those which prompt him to beautify and adorn it. 
And here originates one class of duties, the earthly and worldly 
ones, which, usually self-trained from their urgent daily neces¬ 
sary activity, too generally dominate all others, to which of 
right they ought to be subordinate. 

He is endowed with a variety of mental faculties, which, 
duly exercised, disciplined and informed, fit him and are effi¬ 
cient and sufficient to enable him to discover, comprehend and 
know in this life, not all that is to be known even of earth dur¬ 
ing life’s brief span, but all that is really necessary to be known 
by him in order to insure his happiness here and hereafter; 
whose office is to prompt and enable him to learn, among other 
things, the just limits of worldly appetite, instincts and affec¬ 
tions, their proper objects, sphere and bounds. And here arises 
a second class of duties having reference both to earth and to 
the hereafter, and to the laws of both, of all which the intel¬ 
lectual faculties are fitted to take some cognizance. 

He has a will and conscience prompting to know and do 
the right; has a spiritual nature and an endowment of the 
faculties of wonder and veneration, which incline and enable 
him to hold communion with, and ally him to the spiritual 
natures of earth and Heaven, and make him, if he will, a 
partaker of the communion of saints, and can bring him into 
exalted communion with his Maker; and hence arise a third 
class of allied duties, the moral, spiritual and God revering and 
God obeying. 


14 


YIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


Each of these classes of duties have several species. And 
each species of duty consists of whatsoever duty pertains to or 
grows out of the possession of each several instinct, affection, 
appetite, intelligent faculty, or moral, or spiritual faculty, or 
power. 

Leaving all the laws of his material being to be learned 
from the study of Physiology and Hygiene, moral philosophy 
deals only with those which concern duty as it affects or grows 
out of the soul of man and its attributes. His duties are of 
three classes, as his soul nature is triune. His spiritual consti¬ 
tution—especially the faculties of wonder or faith in the won¬ 
derful, and veneration—implies a duty and relation to the in¬ 
visible God and the spirit world, and prompts him to worship, 
prayer, praise, contemplation of Deity, His laws and works and 
obedience to the divine law of those higher relations. His 
moral faculties—especially conscientiousness and benevolence 
imply that he has duties to God, his creatures and to himself 
and prompt to the knowledge of rights and wrongs. And the 
gift of his intelligence implies that a principal duty, affecting 
alike himself and the creatures and created things around him, 
is to inform and train that intelligence to the utmost of his 
power and opportunity, and that neglect of opportunity and of 
this duty is a sin against the creator and a wrong to himself and 
his fellow beings. Ignorance itself, so far as it is due to the 
waste of time and neglect of power and opportunity, is an of¬ 
fence against one’s self, against his fellow man, and against God, 
and against whatsoever he entrusts to us that may be ill-affected 
or lost through ignorance, and is not often a misfortune to be 
pitied and condoned. And, as we find that no man escapes the 
penalty of a violation of the physical or physiological laws be¬ 
cause he is ignorant of them, so neither can we reasonably con¬ 
clude that man can, in this world at least, escape the penalties 
of a violation of moral and spiritual laws, simply because of 
his ignorance of them. In things moral and spiritual, as in the 
Municipal law, the maxim is fundamental Ignorantia non- 
excusat legem . Man is predestined, under and by a law, uni¬ 
versal, benevolent and just, according to his own acts of omis¬ 
sion or commission. Hence he is bound by duty, and by pen¬ 
alty, and by a prudent concern for his own welfare, to study, 


15 


ECONOMY, USE AND IMPROVEMENTS, ETC. 

learn, know and practice at least the laws of business, of so¬ 
ciety, of physiology and hygiene, of mind, of morals, and of 
that religion which teaches him his relation to the invisible and 
spiritual. And short as man’s earthly life is, and particularly 
that part of it which affords him great leisure for study, the 
primary duty of all intelligent beings, and especially of parents 
for their children, must be the close economy and due improve¬ 
ment of time, not only after maturity, but especially in child¬ 
hood and youth, and thence forward through all the eras of 
man’s existence. 


CHAPTER III. 

THE ECONOMY, USE AND IMPROVEMENTS OF TIME, HEALTH, 
STRENGTH AND MIND. 

Weighing duties in the scales of necessity and urgency, in 
relation to terrestrial or spiritual affairs, no one is of more con¬ 
stant and urgent glavity than the due conservation and economy 
of time, health, strength, mind and moral faculty ; all of which 
are loans or gifts of the Creator to man, to be employed in 
seeking to know, knowing and doing His will and work on earth 
and in Heaven. Every intelligent being has a work or mission, 
according to his original endowments, opportunity and his im¬ 
provement or neglect of them. 

Why does man exist, and what is his responsibility as lord 
of the visible and terrestrial ? To what end is he more highly 
endowed than the worm he treads upon ? Is he here for naught 
but to live for the indulgence of his own ease and appetites, to 
lounge, sleep, eat, drink and die ? Such seems practically to 
be the idea of multitudes of the human race. Why then is he 
so marvellously endowed ? Even many of the lower animals 
and plants have their known beneficent uses, other than in their 
own existence and perishing. Does man alone, the crowning 
glory of the terrestrial creation, exist for himself only, for the 
mere gratification of his own animal appetite, or selfish ambition, 
* or for indulgence in the pleasures of sensuality ? Why then is 



16 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


he endowed with dominion over all other things, with moral 
faculty, whose function is to rule his relation to beings and 
things external to himself, and with other faculties, which 
everywhere and in his every estate prompt a conception of his 
own spiritual nature and other spiritual essences and powers ? 
The conception of such beings may be crude and debased like 
those of the barbarian, the Indian or semi-civilized pagan; or 
purer or loftier, like those of the Jew or Christian ; but wliere- 
ever man has been found and studied, so as to be really compre¬ 
hended, he has not been found, either in ancient or modern 
times, without some belief or tradition of his own spirit as des¬ 
tined to a hereafter ; or of a spirit world, whither his deceased 
ancestors had journeyed after death, 7 and whither he was travel¬ 
ing, and of some Ruling Spirit who swayed the destinies of men 
and recompensed them according to the deeds done in the body. 
The almost universal belief has been, that this earthly state of 
being is but preliminary and preparatory to a better and more 
enduring one ; a state where he is to be informed, trained, dis¬ 
ciplined for a future world, in which he is to find happiness 
without alloy, or enduring penalty. Can such a belief so exist, 
unless the God implanted faculty exists to make it so univer¬ 
sal ? Can priest-craft instill ideas for the reception of which 
God has given no faculty ? Can the painter convey any idea of 
color to the congenitally blind ? 

And if this be true, as nature and revelation alike declare, 
he must enter the realms of bliss, if he enter them at all, with 
a nature and soul disciplined and fitted, alike to be happy him¬ 
self and to contribute to the happiness of others. This he con- 
not be fitted to do, without being here prepared, instructed and 
disciplined to know and to do right, and to love God supremely 
and his fellow man as himself. 

But how brief is the period now alloted for the acquisition 
of all we need to know for this world, and for that other 
practical knowledge of duty and for that perfected discipline 
fitting for the happy hereafter. The ignorance that errs 
through life, and snarls and is unhappy in it, and brings inten¬ 
tionally or unintentionally, infelicity to others, must unless 
miraculously changed at death, err also in the hereafter. He 
who does not. or cannot know and practice the moral laws of 


ECONOMY, USE AND IMPROVEMENTS, ETC. 17 

right and benevolence here, how can he expect to enjoy and be 
happy in their practice hereafter ? He who cannot and does 
not love, worship and adore the Supreme here, how can he find 
happiness in contemplating, adoring and worshipping the 
Supreme Perfection hereafter ? He who through his selfishness 
cannot discern the wisdom and justice and goodness of God, in 
the wonders and laws of earth, how can he discern them in any 
other scene of the hereafter ? He who is the slave of sense and 
sensual pleasure, knowing no joy of righteousness nor spiritual 
felicity here, what fitness can he have for the joys of a state of 
being purely spiritual ? Man therefore has other duties to per¬ 
form here, than the training only of those powers and faculties, 
which simply fit him to live here and earn his subsistence and 
attain terrestrial objects, ambitions and enjoyments. And he, 
or she, who seeks to limit himself or herself or their children to 
such training, criminally errs. 

Man must devote a very considerable portion of his time, 
of course, to the daily toils or arts which bring him his subsistance, 
and the studies which fit him for worldly employments more or 
less laborious, intellectual or exacting; but he must also learn 
and practice here the laws or principles of physiology, which are 
necessary to the preservation and maintenance of the physical 
health, without which he can do nothing ; and he must master 
so much of the laws of mind and its operations as are necessary 
to enable him to train, discipline, inform and energize his 
mental powers. And he must know enough of his moral in¬ 
stincts, their sphere and law and the law of morals, as shall 
enable him to rule his animal instincts, propensities, affec¬ 
tions, passions and actions, within the bounds of right; and he 
must seek and have such illumination to his spiritual faculties, 
and as to the laws of spiritual things, as to be able thereby to 
enforce and aid his obedience to the moral law, and to contri¬ 
bute here and hereafter to the highest happiness of himself and 
others, and to find a sublime pleasure in the contemplation and 
adoration of the power, majesty, wisdom and glory of the Great 
Author of all being, all whose works declare his power and 
wisdom ; while the innumerable sources of happiness opened up 
to all his creatures announce his beneficence. 

But, without a thorough use and resolute due apportion- 

B 


18 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


ment of time, through infancy and maturer years, to all these 
varied uses and ends, man must fail, at least in all the higher 
and nobler objects and aspirations of his being. He is in a 
world, which, for the attainment of necessary worldly things and 
objects, makes urgent daily demands upon his time, talents and 
powers; how incessant in any particular avocation of life, none 
can tell so well as those who are prosperously engaged in it. 

In the arduous struggle for the things of this life, for the supply 
of its needs, or in pursuit of its ambitions, or its gauds, he is, 
even when extraordinarily rapid and industrious, too often 
tempted to consume the whole time which God gives him. And 
if he gives rein to the perversions or excesses of those lower in¬ 
stincts of his nature which are essential to the perpetuity of his 
race here, or enters too eagerly upon the pursuit of sensual 
pleasures, he may speedily wreck, not only his own soul and 
body, but also his fortune and worldly prospects and reputation. 

A primary duty then is, to so allot and economize time as 
to devote a just portion of each day to the training and inform¬ 
ing of every faculty of his being, and especially to maintain 
the vigor and activity of those faculties and powers which ally % 
him to beings of other worlds, and by which he is constituted 
in the image of God. As all man’s progression depends on this 
thorough use of the brief span of human life, how indispensa¬ 
ble is it that he should ever watch the moments as they fly and 
see that none be lost! Can it be otherwise than that, as the 
indolent and profligate certainly sink into the abysses of destitu¬ 
tion, misery or crime here, so indolence and neglect of moral 
and spiritual things, will sink the soul into a like abyss of moral 
and spiritual debasement, and must ensure normal retribution 
here and hereafter ? 

The only right use of time is that which informs, trains 
and disciplines all our powers. Its waste, misuse, or perversion 
to partial aims, tends to loss, debasement and ruin here or here¬ 
after, or both. Piety has its reward, but it will hot alone bring 
to its possessor worldly goods of any kind, not even enough to 
supply daily wants, except as a dependent on others; and such 
piety as expects for itself any of the rewards of intelligent toil, 
without it, is ignorant and erring. Diligence and skill in busi¬ 
ness is a virtue; and it only may bring competence, wealth or 


ECONOMY, USE AND IMPROVEMENTS, ETC. 19 

overflowing coffers, abundant means for pomp and splendor, or 
for the pursuit of pleasure or power, or for charitable or religious 
uses; but all these do not necessarily imply an equal or any 
amount of rectitude, or spiritual gifts and advancement, or of 
the adoration of the divine Giver, or a just knowledge or awe 
of, or general obedience to the divine Ruler, or to any law 
except that of worldly diligence and skill. The excessive de¬ 
votion to and worship of Mammon, which accumulates vast 
fortunes, is usually antagonistic to the knowledge of and com¬ 
munion with and true worship of God. “ For every idle word,” 
say the oracles of God, “ God shall call thee into judgment.” Is 
it not equally true, as to every idle or perverted moment ? 

There is a training or formative ^period, in which great 
opportunity is afforded for the equal training of the moral, 
spiritual and intellectual nature of man. It is the period of 
infancy and youth. How fearful is the responsibility and sin of 
those parents, teachers, ministers, mistresses and masters, who 
fail, each in their sphere, to see to it, that this period does not 
go to waste for all the highest purposes of culture of the children 
of their household, school, church, or charge. 

“Oh, what a world of beauty fades away 
With the winged hours of youth \” 

And what a world of opportunity goes with it,— 

“ To pour the fresh instruction o’er the mind, 

To breathe the enlivening spirit, and to fix 
The generous purpose in the glowing breast!” 

Then good impressions and valuable lessons of every kind 
are easily and more deeply impressed, especially at home, upon 
the plastic mind and heart, and the fleeting periods of infancy, 
youth and early manhood and womanhood, and the recurring 
Sundays especially, are invaluable for all the highest and holiest 
educational purposes, and then, it is emphatically true, that 
time lost never returns or is regained. 

Man must fit himself so as to be in readiness to catch op¬ 
portunity as it flies. 8 His early discipline should make him 
alert, vigilant and energetic. Without the right discipline 
begun in the home in early life, and fortified with the advance 
of years, he may be expected to become a sluggard in thought 
if not in action; to perceive no opportunity as it flies, to over- 


20 


VIA VINCENDI MORALIS. 


value himself and await those opportunities which come not, 
or skeptically or indolently to lose or cast away every real occa¬ 
sion of temporal, spiritual or moral power or progression, and 
to fail, through lack of energy or courage in every undertaking 
of the common or the higher moral and spiritual life. The 
battle is not always to the strong even, but to the brave, the 
vigilant, the hardy, the active. Activity and vigilance, and 
order and method result from careful training that makes them 
habitual. Carjpe diem employ the day, nay, even the mo¬ 
ments well, is not the maxim of the Epicurean philosophy only, 
but of the soundest morals and of Christianity. “Now” is the 
accepted time. “Now” is the day of salvation, not only in 
spiritual, but in temporal affairs. Parents, who indulge them¬ 
selves and children in habits of indolence and irregularity, in 
caprice and vagary, in mental or social dissipation, in dreams 
and aspirations for luxurious ease, and of attending to duty in 
the future, are responsible for all the consequent evils, mischiefs, 
sufferings or crimes that befall themselves or their children, 
who are specially intrusted to them only, by God. They can¬ 
not transfer that duty wholly. There is no royal road to ex¬ 
cellence or success in anything or sphere. That way is ordi¬ 
narily like the Simplon of the Alps, steep and rugged. Life is 
a conflict, in which the best trained wrestler or skilled and capa¬ 
ble soldier can alone hope to win the laurel crown even of 
earth. Renee the few only attain it. If half the skillful train¬ 
ing were given to the whole man, to train him to useful pur¬ 
suits and a high and noble character, that is given to specialists 
like the oarsman, the pugilist, the ballet-girl, the actor, the 
prima donna, the artist in the formative period of life, the 
world would speedily be reformed as if by a miracle, and, if 
given to the whole moral, spiritual and intellectual faculties, 
the millenial dawn would not be afar. Time is not money 
only; but light, life, power, and immortality. Every day, every 
moment casts upon man’s destiny a light or a shadow, that 
tends to sink him into darkness and depravity, or “brightens 
more and more unto the perfect day,” and tends to lift him up 
into the light divine and into immortality. Time is the price¬ 
less treasure house, in which are hidden all the most precious 
things of time and of eternity. It is the free gift of God, but 


OF MOTIVE. 


21 


its value is beyond price to every child of Adam—a value that 
only eternity can fully reveal. It rears the puny, puling infant 
into the physical Hercules, or into the conqueror or curse of 
Kingdoms, the lord of material things, the statesman that curses 
or blesses a state, the sage that informs and civilizes a race, or 
the glorified saint and life-long servant of God, whose services, 
Christ like, are given wholly to God and to man in God’s ap¬ 
pointed way of ordinary work or exalted mission. Or, on the 
other hand, it sinks him into sloughs of mental and moral im¬ 
becility, or the deeper abysses of pauperism, sensuality, woe 
and crime. There is a time for everything under the sun 
worth the doing and necessary to be done and a way to do it; 
but that time is constantly rushing by forever, and only the 
vigilant and diligent find and use it. It is winged and tarries 
not for the slothful, the mere visionary or the prodigal of time. 
The language of the flitting moments, inaudible to untrained 
mortal ears, is that of holy writ “now.” The voices of all the 
past generations each swell for us a chorus of warning of its 
brevity and the speed of its flight. Hone can say how soon the 
awful voice may say, “Thou fool this night thy soul shall be 
required of thee.” The most fundamental of all duties to one’s 
self, to our fellow men, and to God, is to closely economize and 
to use well and to some good, right and ever urgent holy pur¬ 
pose, each priceless moment from the first dawn of infantile 
capability to the final repose of the grave. 


CHAPTER IV. 

OF MOTIVE. 

Motive is that which moves a man to thought and action. 
Motives are of two kinds—the one born of mere instinct, appe¬ 
tite or affection, and therefore a mere impulse to action—the 
other moral or spiritual and intelligent, acting upon and 
through the will, and these are governing and restraining as 
well as motive powers. 

The appetites, instincts, affections, emotions, passions, in 
their necessarily spontaneous action, or in their action excited 



22 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


by their objects presented to the senses, or by the imagination, 
or recalled by the memory or intellect, may prompt vain dreams 
or thronging anticipations resulting in no actual pursuit; or 
they may prompt both thought and action for the attainment 
of their proper object. The former chiefly characterize the 
idiotic, the latter characterize the great body of men and 
women. But the visionary dreamer, if not idiotic, can be but 
a mere nonentity. Although the term motive is not ordinarily 
applied to that which prompts indolent dreaming, some instinct 
of hope, fear, affection or aspiration is nevertheless the motive 
of the thought or reverie, as in other cases, it is the motive both 
of thought and action. Hope, aspiration, reminisence, usually 
color and lend a charm to reveries and the master passion of 
the hour controls them. Each and every of our instincts, appe¬ 
tites and affections, when in activity from any cause whatever, 
thus become the motive of its particular line of reverie, thought 
or action. But reverie differs from stalwart thought in being 
aimless and without purpose of action, and even mere reveries 
of a religious or moral character are vanities. Life is too swift 
for the indulgence of these cankering reveries that but waste it. 
But much may be learned of the prevailing or dominant char¬ 
acter of the child as he advances to maturity, by inquiring into 
the subjects of his day-dreams, if any he have; and all children, 
even idiots, have them. 

All these instipcts, affections and appetites, when seeking 
by proper means their own appropriate and rightful objects and 
aims, prompt activities; and are right motives of decent speech 
and action, although not the most exalted of motives. They 
are, in and of themselves, not wrong and sinful, but innocent— 
nay it is a duty to pursue their several innocent and regulated 
gratifications. Thus the love of and desire to possess a beauti¬ 
ful or admirable woman, or a handsome or noble man, is a right 
motive to tender and loving thoughts and acts, and to plans to 
win the desired object and to the act of wooing. It only 
becomes wrong and criminal, when overleaping the bounds of 
well ordered desire, one already pledged to another becomes 
faithless, or when it covets a wrong object already bound by 
holy ties to another, or seeks a proper object with evil design, 
or by unjustifiable means, as by hypocrisy, falsehood, fraud or 


OF MOTIVE. 


23 


force, or with sinister motive other than the appropriate one, as 
from greed of fortune or ambition only, rather than love. So 
it is with every instinct or affection, as a motive of man ; and, 
although every motive to thought or action, which originates 
in the heart and soul of man and impels to corresponding 
action, is right in itself in the abstract, yet every one of them 
may become corrupted and wrong hy the adoption of forbidden 
means, or a forbidden object of pursuit, or by the pursuit of it, 
not for its own sake, but for illicit or base ends. While there¬ 
fore, no instinct, or affection or appetite, or its motive, is wrong 
and sinful in itself, every one of them may be so mixed or 
perverted as to become so. The anchorite or the recluse, if he 
attempt to suppress completely any instinct or affection, sins 
against the God who implants it, and seeks in vain to eradicate 
it, and he can only pervert it to become the parent of unholy 
and really noxious reveries and dreams, for which he scourges 
himself and does penance in vain ! 

But while every pure and normal instinct and its normal 
activity and natural motive is right and tends to the doing of 
God’s work and the fulfilment of his will on earth in part— 
there are among them some that must be subordinated, and 
others that ought to be ever and always supreme. Thus self- 
respect or the desire to maintain taintless honor and repute, 
and conscience or the motive of duty to ourselves, to others and 
to God, and veneration or actual adoration of the Supreme and 
Infinite, and the motive to study, know and obey His laws, 
will and government, are and ought to be, if we rightly regard 
even our own interests, of transcendent power and authority, 
and, in unison with the trained intellect, they ought always to be 
and remain, as they were evidently intended to be, the supreme 
regulators of all other motives, and of our whole speech and 
conduct through life. 10 

Man’s lower nature, the animal instincts, appetites and 
merely terrestrial affections, emotions and passions give birth 
to desires more or less energetic, which prompt or drive to 
speech, action or pursuit, right or wrong, as they may be 
restrained, governed or guided by an intelligent morality and 
firm will, or as they blindly pursue immoral objects, or moral 
objects by immoral means, or in excess of their regulated and 


24 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


healthful enjoyment. All have their appointed orbit and 
limits and occasions of innocent and dutiful activity and indul¬ 
gence. As to those lower motive powers and their internal 
and external activities, man is good and moral; and he only 
becomes a wrong doer or sinner by their excessive, perverted or 
perverting pursuit of objects, or in excessive indulgence in 
them, when attained, or by indulging them in a bestial man¬ 
ner. 11 The depravity of man consists, not in the possession of 
God-given and wisely implanted instincts and passions, which 
multiply sources of enjoyment and needed incentives to inten¬ 
sified’ action in this world, nor in their activity, but in their 
perverted, exclusive, abnormal, excessive or brutal action, 
uncontrolled by a dominant will based upon a sense of right 
and fear of God, and an intelligent knowledge of their function, 
sphere, just objects and bounds, and just methods of pursuit 
under the divine law. Their objects are in and of the visible 
tactile world around us, and that world is daily and hourly 
stimulating their activities. They are thus hourly trained into 
mastery, and we are constantly in imminent peril of their 
becoming dominant and dangerous, and we ourselves are in 
peril of becoming more and more depraved into mere world¬ 
lings or brutes. Unless the higher moral faculties, that prompt 
to honor, justice, benevolence, and adoration and study of the 
divine, are also daily trained and fortified by like daily activity 
and practice, they cease to maintain their just ascendency; the 
lower instincts and appetites rapidly become ascendant over the 
higher moral or spiritual powers and reign over us ; and man, 
even in his early years becomes helplessly depraved—helpless 
at least save by the arm of Almighty power and its regenerat¬ 
ing might through faith. Henceforward, whether decently or 
not, he lives like the brutes that perish, or succor must coine 
from the Divine Spirit that indwelleth in every man, to ener¬ 
gize and give renewed ascendency to the man’s moral, spiritual, 
self-honoring, God-adoring and religious nature, and, as God is 
everywhere, within him and around him, that succor is ever 
nigh, if he will but invoke it aright. 

Every wrong done, and every temptation entertained,* 
weaken his power to do right. Every contemplation of right 
and duty, every sincere resolve to do it, every successful resist- 


OF MOTIVE. 


25 


ance to temptation, every aspiration for divine help, every 
honorable, conscientious and religious act done, renews his 
might and tends to give supremacy to his moral, self-respecting 
and religious nature and its motive power. Ignoring high and 
holy thoughts and any worship of the Deity, he becomes more 
and more earthly, sensual and devilish, whether he believe in 
God or Devil, or neither. Hence regular seasons devoted to 
the contemplation of the All-good, omniscient and infinite 
Majesty and his perfections, and daily adoration of Him, and 
prayers for his divine help to give us victory over our unruly 
instincts, to enlighten us as to their sphere and limits, to aid us 
in the knowledge and discharge of every duty, to give ascend¬ 
ency to our moral and spiritual nature, to fill our souls with 
the divine light and life, and to strengthen in us a will to know 
and pursue the right, if a rational living faith attend and 
prompt them—are the practical, indispensable conditions of our 
success in the moral government of ourselves, and of the main¬ 
tenance or recovery of the ascendency of the will to do right, 
serve God, and obey his laws, ayd are an obligatory daily duty 
of every one, everywhere, under every form of government or 
religion. 

He who lives irreligiously from day to day, under the 
dominion of his merely mundane appetites, instincts and 
passions, daily debases himself towards the level of the brutes 
and casts away his heritage as a child of God, created in his 
image, and as a religious and moral being, aspiring humbly 
towards His perfection, and becomes worse than the higher 
order of pagans, and imbrutes himself utterly. Even, if we do 
not permit these lower instincts and appetites to inflict actual 
wrong upon others, we yet thus wrong ourselves, and offend 
the Almighty Giver of our higher faculties and powers. 
Hence, although it is our duty honestly to strive for the acqui¬ 
sition of wealth, 10 reputation, power and dominion on earth, 
and to'so train our mental faculties and order our habits and 
practices as to enable us to make efficient efforts for their attain¬ 
ment, it is to all a still higher duty to take and use also 
sufficient time to train, energize and inform our higher moral, 
religious and spiritual faculties and powers, so that we may 
daily perform our whole duty to ourselves and our fellow-men 


26 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


in all our relations with them, and above all to the Supreme 
-Creator, Law-Giver, and Lord of the Universe. 11 And we 
cannot perform this varied round of duties and studies and 
practices . without systematic diligence, and a regulated daily 
allotment of time. This methodical allotment of time is there¬ 
fore also a duty. 

Certain appetites, affections and instincts are ordinarily 
mere motive powers. Fear, love of wife and offspring, self- 
respect or sense of honor, love of approbation or good repute, 
conscience and the spiritual faculties are both motive and 
restraining powers. The true question of morals and religion 
is not as to the suppression or extinction of any of them ; but, 
“what is the sphere of their normal activity and their proper 
objects, and their just bounds and limitation.” And it is the 
office of a sound morality and of true religion, enlightened by 
intellect, study and divine inspiration, natural or special, to 
teach the true sphere and limitation, subordination or supremacy 
of each, and it is the office of the moral and religious faculties 
to control all the others according to such rule. The moral 
faculties are the motive powers urging to the knowledge of right 
and wrong, and to right and benevolent action. They are the 
powers that impel to and compel the discharge of duty, as such, 
to God and his creatures. When they cease to act, man will 
not discharge even the common duty of daily persistent dili¬ 
gence in the pursuit of terrestrial things, save on the compul¬ 
sion of immediate present necessity. The thriftless, indolent 
pauper classes are of this order of men. The spiritual instincts 
are in like manner motive powers, which impel to the knowl¬ 
edge of God, of his will, laws and purposes, and to conform to 
them on Earth and in Heaven, and to adoration of the Infinite, 
Omniscient and All just and merciful first cause, and to com¬ 
munion with the unseen world of spirits and high communion 
with the Supreme Spirit of the Universe, the great Father of 
Spirits. And these latter, loftier instincts, like the lower facul¬ 
ties and instincts, require to be guided, and informed aright by 
reason, study, inspiration or divine revelation, or they fall into 
gross error, idolatries, vagaries and superstitions. 

Passing any consideration of his internal organism or exter¬ 
nal physical constitution, each of which also appear to have 


OF MOTIVE. 


27 


triune functions, man thus appears in his spiritual or soul 
nature, to be like his creator, and in his irhage, triune or a 
trinity. And a trinity of various predominating classes of 
motives may and do guide and impel mankind, and divide them 
into three great classes—the one class being simply earthly and 
sensual when not devilish or criminal—the second, moral or 
righteous—and the third spiritual and peculiarly divine. The 
class of people who are perpetually inspired only by the first 
class of instinctive animal motives can be little more than 
dreamers of Time’s dreams and actors in earth’s dramas, more or 
less obscure, infamous or illustrious, as they may be possessed 
of more or less trained or untrained intellects or ambition, so 
that they work to practical ends, or, if devoid of these, they will 
be mere impractical idlers, sensualists or low criminals ; and, 
however they may plume themselves on some imaginary supe¬ 
riority, they are really of the lower order of men, even when 
endowed with wealth, worldly station and fair intelligence. 
The second class are usually the self-righteous Pharisees of every 
age, who, according to the degree of their intelligence and knowl¬ 
edge, live usually more or less respectable, moral and charitable 
lives, and make morality their God, and attain more or less 
eminence and general respect. The third class alone, whether 
rich or poor, eminent or obscure, by their well ordered lives 
and constant communion with the Infinite, rise to the full 
dignity of man’s spiritual nature without spiritual pride, and 
with the humility born of the contemplation of the Infinite ; 
and may be, notwithstanding, this superiority as men, more 
humble, self-controlling, self-denying and abounding in all 
righteous and benevolent acts, according to their means, 
than any other class of men. If endowed with ordinal*/ 
intelligence, they think, act and move with an all-prevailing 
consciousness that they are the creatures of a God infinite 
in his nature and attributes, and ever present everywhere 
in them and around them, who gives to all things the laws 
of their constitution, existence and continuance, to which 
all things must conform or perish, and in whom they literally 
live and move and have their being. And they so act under 
a motive the most transcendent in range, efficacy and power of 
all others. 


28 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


But the great difficulty still remains—that of learning, 
with man’s finite reason, and rightly applying this law of God 
which is to guide him through the mazes of things material 
and things spiritual, and the intricacies of passion and appetite, 
and to govern all his desires and passions, his moral and spirit¬ 
ual nature, and his relation to terrestrial things in general, to 
his fellow-man and to the Supreme. 

In the midst of man’s crowding avocations, and in view of 
the time that must be given to the supply of his merely terres¬ 
trial wants, in order that he may make and secure time for the 
study of his art or profession, and of his varied relations and 
duties, it becomes at once self-evident that he must not only 
practice order and method and system everywhere, and do with 
all his might the business of life; but also that the period of 
youth, when he is not yet a toiler in the world’s busy marts, is- 
invaluable; and that then, as well as in after life, he must not 
only economize time and do diligently all his life’s work of 
preparatory study, but he must do so, as he must love the 
Supreme Being “with all his heart and with all his his mind and 
with all his soul and with all his strength.” And God has sup¬ 
plied him with ample stimuli in his psychical and material con¬ 
stitution to impel and compel him so to do. God’s earth has 
no place for the idle and the dissolute, and their paths are steep 
descents to the grave and to perdition. 


CHAPTER Y. 

OF DILIGENCE AND PARENTAL DUTY TO THE YOUNG. 

In the matter of training his children, the parent does or 
omits to do, does intelligently and well, or ignorantly, caprici¬ 
ously and ill, a work that tells upon his own yet helpless little 
darlings for time and for eternity. 12 Who authorizes him or 
her, to whom God entrusts and gives the priceless little inno¬ 
cents, to commit its right training or utter perversion wholly to 
others ? Who tells him or her, that his or her chief and only 
duty is to win for it necessary subsistence or luxurious living, 



29 


OF DILIGENCE AND PARENTAL DUTY, ETC. 

simple comfortable surroundings and raiment or costly array, 
or to dress and feed and bouse it as well as the best ? Do they 
fulfill their whole duty in economizing and using in the most 
effectual manner, their time for such purposes, and the paying 
for their tuition, without ever knowing what is the character 
of the teaching, the improvement of the scholar, his diligence 
and attention, or lack of diligence in the use of the means of 
education, his moral or religious progress or depravement, or 
his habitual associations and their good or evil influence upon 
him counteracting or aiding the influence of school, church 
and home? 

It is true then, that one of the first duties of parents is to so 
economize and allot their own time, as to regularly employ a 
due portion of it for the discharge of his or her personal duty 
to the child ; and, if diligence and system are virtues, it is the 
duty of parents to train their offspring from their earliest years 
to such diligent and systematic allotment and use of their time 
to useful and beneficent studies, pursuits and knowledge of 
affairs as are suited to their tender years and growing maturity: 
and he or she must take time to fit himself or herself for super¬ 
intending, and time also to superintend in fact and truth, the 
education of his or her child, even if he commit the actual 
teaching to others. This duty, in earliest days, devolves chiefly 
upon the mother. 

“To aid the mind’s development—to watch 
The dawn of little joys—to sit and see 
Almost the very growth—to view him catch 
Knowledge of objects.” 

The child, in its cradle, from its earliest days, is learning 
by sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, things and the properties of 
things around him and near him, and he very soon learns their 
forms and names, and to love and cling to inmates of the home, 
although he shrinks from strangers. All this acquisition of 
knowledge, it is in the power of the parents, before the arrival 
of his school days, to make more rapid, clear, distinct and 
definite, and to extend by showing to the child and teaching 
him to observe the forms and properties, excellencies, defects 
and uses of things around him or specially exhibited to him. 


30 


VIA MORALIS VLNCENDI. 


Object teaching may be very early begun, and always profitably 
continued. 

It is learning also, but not very definitely, from its rough, 
negligent or accidental contact with and injuries from or to the 
things about it, something of cause and effect, and could be 
early taught much more; and that, which he does indistinctly 
know, be made far more clear and definite,* and the general 
principle be very early taught him and be understood, that for 
every effect there is a cause, and its converse also might be 
understood, that every operating cause produces its own effect 
for good or ill, as he or she must all their days practically 
discover. 

It is learning also, from its own consciousness and from the 
acts, looks, expressions and passions of others around it, and 
from its own demands conceded, or denied, and from its own 
sympathetic or imitative conditions and acts, and by comparison 
and reflection, other lessons at a very early age; and it is daily 
forming conclusions for itself, and habits of emotion, passion, 
character, indolence or activity. How many parents realize, 
that the child of a .few months or years knows, thinks or re¬ 
members, or reasons at all? Yet, in view of these facts of the 
growing, thinking children of the home, and their early spon¬ 
taneity of memory and consciousness, lies the duty of early 
parental vigilence, inquiry, correction, instruction and train¬ 
ing of the child, and especially the duty of avoiding or guard¬ 
ing against any evil example being set, evil words spoken, evil 
deeds done, evil passions indulged in its presence by any one. 
Alas, what precious minutes and even hours, wasted in the bar¬ 
rooms, saloons or other places of public concourse, or in idle 
gossip with vagrant men and women at the fireside, or in mere 
toying with the little one, might not be far more pleasantly 
and profitably spent by the conscientious and intelligent parent 
in discharge of high and grave duties to his or her offspring. 

Man’s hours are too fleeting, and his life too brief and daily 
need of work too urgent for a thorough discharge of even liis 
gravest duties, unless he husbands its precious spare moments 
of leisure from pressing avocations for the discharge of duties 
like this; or resolutely puts aside all trifling, and devotes un¬ 
varyingly allotted time to it with studied and definite purposes 


31 


OF DILIGENCE AND PARENTAL DUTY, ETC. 

as to what he must effect, and how he must effect it; aud with 
patient effort to attract and interest the curious yet receptive 
mind of the infant, which grows the more unreceptive the 
longer it is neglected. To train and cultivate the temper, in¬ 
telligence, moral and religious nature of the child aright, ia is-a 
task that cannot he discharged intelligently by a father or 
mother who is unintelligent, unstudious, ill-tempered, ill-dis¬ 
posed, and without morals or religion. Such an one must begin 
with himself, or herself, and, being reformed, may hope for 
some success in right labors to educate the immortal committed 
to his or her care. And in such training is found a beginning 
of the victories of after life. 

Whatever be the degree and extent of other education,, 
each child should have a special education to skill in some pro¬ 
fession, art, trade, handicraft of mercantile avocation, fitting 
him or her by its practice to win subsistence, independence and 
a home, and that they may be enabled to contribute their own 
quota to the meritorious institutions, charities, hospitalities and 
amenities of life. Civil government, the church, the Sunday 
school, the school, and many deserving charities demand the 
contributions of all, and not of the few only, according to their 
ability, possessions or earnings, and he, who, from any cause, 
fails to contribute, except temporarily and from casual infirm¬ 
ity, deservedly loses caste and sinks in esteem below the full 
standard of a capable manhood or womanhood. 

For ten or a dozen years, at school or at home, the child 
remains under the absolute tutelage of the parents, and if he- 
has not grown up insubordinate, and is not compelled by family 
necessities to be aliened from home, he is for twenty-one years 
under parental control; or nearly a third of the entire ordinary 
present term of human life. For better or worse, are not their 
characters and prospects generally then fixed and settled for the 
remainder of their days ? The parents’ days are mostly con¬ 
sumed in their necessary avocations, and many have nothing 
left but more or less of the evening, and the Sabbath. What 
can they who employ little or none of that time for the educa¬ 
tional or disciplinary benefit of a son or a daughter, reasonably 
expect of them ? The parents have clothed, fed, schooled the 
child, cared for him or her in sickness and in health, given him 


32 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


or her a knowledge of a trade and perhaps some speculative 
idea of duty, and the child has necessarily some instinctive 
attachment to the parents. But the children, have no deep and 
wide impressions of duty, have all their lives sacrificed no de¬ 
sire or inclination to its performance, have formed no habit of 
rapid, energetic, systematic diligence, have no living pervading 
sense of God, His law, their obligations to it, His omnipresence, 
nor of the duty of serving Him through a hearty dedication of 
themselves, through His laws, and their daily avocation to His 
will, and no inquisitiveness as to what law He has given to 
themselves or to any living creature. 14 Are they not still 
waifs on the sea of life, tempest-tossed by the waves of inclina¬ 
tion and passion ? Are they not liable to violate every law of 
safety, and to become easily cast away or wrecks ? And may 
they not imagine themselves to be, or really be unable to dis¬ 
charge even any filial duty ? 

God gives to the child faculties and talents, wherewith he 
may acquire wisdom, learning, arts, sciences, knowledge of his 
laws natural or physical, and moral or spiritual. 15 All this, if 
he acquire it at all, must be acquired by right and energetic 
efforts of the child’s proper faculties, of which it is especially 
the function to acquire it. God gives the faculty, as he puts 
mines in the earth, and gold and gems in the rocks, the earth 
or the ocean. But the labor of each several toiler can alone 
bring to light and effulgence, grace and beauty, shape and polish 
the one, or reduce and fit for its proper uses the one or product 
of the other. And work that informs, and use that disciplines, 
can only make the God-given faculty a power for good. The 
appetites, instincts and affections, which have earthly functions, 
have ever present anear them the objects which continuously 
arouse them into spontaneous action, and, unless ruled, may 
rise into turbulent passions that sweep away every barrier of 
duty. And, unless the mental faculties are trained to corres¬ 
ponding or superior activity and power, and the conscience and 
the spiritual powers are so exercised as to rule and maintain 
their just supremacy, the intellect itself becomes subordinate to 
and a mere servitor of the lower instincts; and conscience and 
the spiritual powers become incapable of efficient sway over 
them ; and the animal instincts and appetites lord it over their 


OF DILIGENCE AND PARENTAL DUTY, ETC. 33 

victim. But five and a half or six hours are usually spent in 
the school room, and they are devoted to a very limited intel¬ 
lectual culture by both study and recitation. All the rest, not 
devoted to eating or sleep, are spent in the yard, the street or 
the home. When and where shall the moral and religious in¬ 
stincts or faculties be trained, except through the duty of the 
parent to see that they are trained ? No one can tell how grave 
may be the consequences for blessing or curse to the home, the 
neighborhood, the country or the world, of the training into 
habitual supremacy, of the moral and religious faculties, 16 or of 
their neglect or subordination to the all-craving and ever-ruling 
master passions. And this training does not consist in simply 
informing the mind with moral and religious principles, but in 
the habitual right practice of them. And there is for the child 
no school of practice of them, save in the home and in his 
hours of free association out of the school room. But how can 
any parent superinduce this practice without daily ward and 
vigilance over the child’s acts, words and manners, and knowing 
daily whether his hourly practice is right or wrong ? 

But, in this work the best schools, teachers and parents 
can but guide, instruct, persuade and, if need be, daily coerce 
the child ; and, without some docility and real effort and vigi¬ 
lance on the part of the child, to comprehend, remember and 
practice, all else is vain, and the labor of the parent on earth is 
but a repetition of the fabulous toils of Sysiplius. And the 
willful and unruly and wayward and unimpressionable must be 
progressed by coercion, as man is forced to progress by the 
coercion of God-made necessities. But the trouble generally 
is that the child, who perhaps was diligently learning in his 
first month of the cradle and of locomoton, all that his eyes, 
ears, touch, taste, smell could teach him of the things around 
him, having learned that, has had no effort made to teach him 
aught else for years, under an impression that he is too young 
to learn ; until the once active infant mind has become sluggish 
and utterly indisposed to act, and recoils from the dry rudi¬ 
ments of learning, and wearies with every summons to effort. 
But philosophy and wisdom are acquired, not innate; only the 
faculty of acquisition is born with the child ; and he, who pur¬ 
sues its object with the greatest daily diligence and energy, 

C 


34 - 


YIA MORALIS YINOENDI. 


both trains, informs and energizes it; and will, other things being 
equal, become the most learned, capable and wise in worldly, 
moral or heavenly things and thoughts. The same rule applies 
to the most ordinary and to the highest arts and studies as to 
worldly gains—robust effort underlies all success. Diligence 
itself, and also the skill and wisdom which diligent studies 
bring, are not only shields against temptation’s swelling wave or 
its seductions, and the temptor’s fiery darts; but they fortify 
and adorn the intellect, the moral faculties, and the spiritual 
nature of man. Mental diligence is not the originator of any 
rule ; but it is the interpreter and formulator of all God’s broad, 
comprehensive rules and principles of science, art, life, 
morals, religion and immortality. This diligence is re¬ 
quired, not only in the dailyJ;oil which wins bread and raiment, 
houses and lands, and external pomp and splendor; but in 
the study of the mental and moral constitution of man, and of 
those rules and principles of his higher nature and life, which 
affect us most vitally here and hereafter. Adults and infants 
have the same physical, mental and moral elementary constitu¬ 
tion. They differ only in the larger practical experience , 17 learn¬ 
ing, strength and discipline of the adult; 18 and both adults and 
infants differ only in the degree, power and activity of one or 
another of those identical elements or faculties. In both, that 
which is too powerful or exclusive, so as to assume mastery 
where it ought to be subordinate, breeds vice, and must be re¬ 
pressed and subordinated; and that which is too feeble, but, 
ought to rule and have dominion, must be exercised, trained, 
strengthened and exalted, in order to insure virtue. And no 
character can be a safe character, either for its possessor or 
others, or pleasing to the great creator, in which conscientious¬ 
ness, veneration and faith—the moral and the spiritual—do not 
sit enthroned as crowned kings over all and every other power 
and faculty, and over the master passion that pertains to sub¬ 
lunary affairs and things. And there is no sound, beneficent or 
safe education or training that does not attain thi| end. 


THE DUTY OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 


35 


CHAPTER VI. 

THE DUTY OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 

It results therefore that, as under God, the most important 
factor in the world’s affairs is man himself, a knowledge of his 
own faculties, instincts, and constitution is the most vital of all 
knowledge. In that God-given nature and constitution , 19 his 
duties, God-ordained, find their origin, impulse, scope and 
limitation 

“The proper study of mankind is man !” “Know thyself’ 
was the command engraved over the entrance to one of the 
most celebrated of the oracles of Greece, and the maxim of 
one of its most ancient sages, and it was indicative of the 
wisdom of those who originated it and whose oracular utter¬ 
ances made it famous for generations. Man must know his 
nature, his appetites, instincts, affections, passions, intelligent, 
moral and spiritual faculties, and learn their God-ordained law 
and lawful sphere and normal action ; 20 or, however capable he 
may be of right self-control, he cannot intelligently exercise it. 
He must know something of his intellectual faculties, and of 
attention, observation, perception, memory, understanding, 
causality, comparison and analysis, synthesis and syllogism, judg¬ 
ment and other modes and processes of mental activity, or he 
cannot train and energize his faculties or their action aright, 
except by chance or actual accidental working, as distinguished 
from systematic, well adjudged, well-ordered, and scientific 
effort, discipline 21 and culture. The parent, who would train 
aright himself or his child, cannot afford to be ignorant of the 
soul nature of man, and of mental and moral philosophy, or of 
spiritual philosophy or true religion. Any practical discipline 
can otherwise be but fortuitous, crude, capricious, partial, and 
tending to intellectual, moral or spiritual monstrosity, unless he 
happen to follow and furnish a very diversified line of study. 
But while natural and mental philosophy have made great ad¬ 
vancement within the past century, but little is generally or 


36 


VIA VINCENDI MORALIS. 


popularly known of tlie moral faculties which seek and apply 
the rules of right, or of the spiritual faculties which induce 
faith in and revere the Creative Power, and hold communion 
with the unseen and invisible world of spirits and its Supreme 
Ruler, except what revelation itself teaches or implies. 

That such faculties have existed in all ages and all races of 
men, however perverted or weakened, needs no other evidence 
than that which may be found in the mythology or record of 
the prevailing religions of all ages , 22 and in their philosophy in 
all lands not utterly sunk in the deepest depths of barbarism. 
Every class of ideas must have a generative or a receptive and 
comprehending faculty or power in the human mind, and does 
have. The blind, who, by touch, feel a difference in colors and 
name them to a limited extent, unless they once had the sense 
of sight, can form no such idea of color as is presented to the 
man endowed with sight. Nor can they, who are devoid of 
conscience, form any idea of wrong and right akin to that of 
an upright man. Nor can they, who are born idiotic in spirit¬ 
ual endowments, conceive any idea of the spiritual faculty or of 
spirits human, angelic or divine, except as they may conceive 
them to possess, like man, attributes and powers not known to 
inhere in any other material thing. Swedenborg, Mahomet, 
Socrates, Descartes, Compte, Milton, Dante, the prophets, the 
priests or they who are naturally fitted for the priestly office, 
and above all Christ and his apostles are great and illustrious 
examples of the native power and activity of these faculties. 
Even impostors cannot, without them, successfully inaugurate or 
found a religion. And the Christian Religion, beyond all 
others, gives intrinsic evidence of its divine origin in its spirit¬ 
ual character and revelations of God, and in the abnegation of 
temporal things and labors, and its commands to labor for'the 
spiritual and eternal, and it is adapted, beyond all others, to 
train, discipline and exalt those spiritual and moral faculties, 
and to teach the mass of men in all their circumstances, how to 
live and how to die. And no man can rise to the true dignity 
of his nature or to exalted communion with the world of spirits 
and their Creator and Lord, so well, as by a close contempla¬ 
tion, knowledge and study of the sacred books of the Christian 
and Jewish dispensations, and of their divine source as mani- 


THE SUPPORT OF INSTITUTIONS. 


37 


fested in nature. And it is the special glory of our day and 
generation, that through the Sunday school, the Bible class, 
the church, there is at least abundant opportunity to train these 
faculties. But it is greatly to be lamented and is a sad proof 
of the low activity or inaction of these faculties in the great 
body of the people, that so few avail themselves of these or 
other means of the exaltation of man to his primal, moral and 
spiritual condition; and that the same people neglect all moral 
and spiritual discipline at home. To them, only the records of 
the Eternal, the opening of the great book of judgment at the 
last day, can reveal how utterly they, through their neglects of 
higher opportunities, are responsible for all the moral and 
spiritual wreck that may afflict or has befallen themselves or 
their children. 


CHAPTER YII. 

THE SUPPORT OF INSTITUTIONS. 

All institutions are an outgrowth of the spirit of the age 
in which they exist, and a distinct and visible expression of its 
acknowledged needs and activities. It is as true of the schools 
of various kinds, the Sunday school, the bible class, the. church, 
the lyceum, the parochial school, the secular or common schools, 
the art and industrial schools, and the state and its form of 
government and laws, as it is of the almshouse, the reforma¬ 
tories, the asylums, the station houses, the jail, the peniten¬ 
tiary and the state prisons, and the courts of justice with their 
counselors, attorneys and attendants. Both the one and the 
other are expressions of the struggle of good with evil, of 
wisdom with folly, vice and crime. 

In the ancient days antecedent to the Christian era, as in 
the middle ages, the schools of philosophy and of mathematics, 
or the precincts of the temple or Synagogue and its priests or 
authorized doctors of the law, seem to have been, in addition to 
man’s customary avocations, offerings, sacrifices and orisons, the 
chief or only educators of mankind. 



38 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


In onr day, in addition to the schools named before, select 
schools, seminaries, academies, high schools, colleges and 
universities, professional schools, military schools, the religious 
and political art and business conventions, the library and the 
press, all combine to do that work for better or worse, counter¬ 
acting or aiding each other and invite all so to struggle as to 
attain their benefits. The lower grade of secular education, 
miscalled free, is provided for, wisely or unwisely, by relieving 
the more careless and improvident classes, who save and own 
nothing, wholly of the duty of educating their children and of 
the support of education, and imposing its entire burden on 
the more prudent, industrious and property-holding classes; 
and these schools usually are so graded and managed, that the 
proficiency of all the scholars is advanced only upon a system 
which is necessary to affect any proficiency at all in those who 
have no care or supervision at home. No other educational in¬ 
stitutions, except town, county or state pauper, insane or crim¬ 
inal institutions, are so based or sustained. In theory at least, 
every widow’s mite is invited. Really the most important of 
all the higher grades of these institutions of learning beyond 
the common schools—the academy, the colleges, the univer¬ 
sities, the Sunday school, the bible class and the church, are 
attended relatively by few, and are either voluntarily endowed, 
or are dependent upon voluntary support either by term or 
matriculation fees, or by the rental of sittings or other volun¬ 
tary contributions. The church, the Sunday school, the bible 
class and sectarian newspapers and books, are the sole spiritual 
tutors of mankind ; and, with the college or university, they 
are his only moral tutors. And it is a sign of evil omen, that 
so few parents or youth practice self-denial enough, or toil with 
sufficient success, to enable either the young or the more 
mature to seek their ministrations. Yet this higher intellectual, 
moral and spiritual teaching, and the resulting practice, is in¬ 
dispensable, not only to the recipient or pupil, but to the safety 
of the community at large. Few of the immoral and still * 
fewer of the criminal classes graduate from such institutions. 
Ignorance, or a low so-called practical business education, is too 
often the misfortune of the criminal, the extortionist, the de¬ 
frauder, the spendthrift or of the improvident classes generally. 


THE SUPPORT OF INSTITUTIONS. 


39 


Even the church, the Sunday school and the college fail to cor¬ 
rect, moderate and regulate some natures. But it is therefore 
a more urgent duty of every man who has any regard for the 
temporal, moral and spiritual welfare of his race, or for his 
own safety and that of the community, or his obligation to the 
common father of us all, to endeavor to so labor and to so 
practice frugality, and abstemious living, industry, vigilance 
and skill, as to be able to control some portion of our time and 
earnings for the support of needful, educative and beneficent 
institutions; and it is the imperious duty of those whom God 
has blessed with a more liberal culture, means and education, 
to found scholarships, not perhaps wholly free, but to which 
the payment of a small fee, or a little self-denial of the parent 
or the child, would give easy access to less fortunate children, 
or the children of less capable yet 'more worthy and self-con- 
trolling parents. The payment of some equivalent or quid 
pro quo for any privilege would seem to be the better practice, 
except in the case of orphans of very tender age, because it in¬ 
volves and exacts some practice of industry, economy and self- 
denial and a spirit of self-help. The church, the day-school, 
the Sunday school, cannot be sustained without means, but it is 
the duty of all to sustain them; and the small attendance upon 
and struggling condition of many of these institutions in popu¬ 
lous neighborhoods, is an evil augury for the future of the peo¬ 
ple, and of other valuable institutions, even that of good gov¬ 
ernment ; for no government can be better or higher than the 
people who control and administer it. 22 Although the institution 
of government takes care of itself so far as expenditures are 
concerned, by its own powers, yet, it therefore needs to be 
watched and jealously restrained from the incurring of debt 
and undue expenditures ; and its power and laws need to be 
sustained in its righful sphere and exercise, and obeyed. But 
a self-willed, prodigal, luxurious and ostentatious spirit among 
the higher classes of society 23 begets self-will, prodigality and 
discontent among lower orders. The pride and pomp of high 
officials, and the inordinately high salaries which enable them 
to enter upon a sumptuous mode of living, disseminate the 
spirit of vanity, and rivalry and extravagance through all ranks ; 
and it is an evil that enervates and corrupts the body of citizens, 


40 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


and is especially perilous to republics and destructive of the 
foundation and all the supports of free institutions. 

Mere practical skill or dexterity in manual labor tends 
on the other hand to convert or approximate man to a mere 
piece of mechanism, useful beyond doubt; but neither intelli¬ 
gent nor ornamental, nor capable of the higher uses of man¬ 
hood j 24 and an education that simply trains him to an art, where 
by to earn his livelihood, and cultivates only avarice, vanity and 
ambition, or even also his intellectual faculties, may only con¬ 
vert him into a human octopus, grasping all that comes within 
his reach, and converting it into its own sustenance or great¬ 
ness . 25 But the Christian and moral home, the church, the sun- 
day school, and the university and the business schools must 
combine to create the large-hearted, liberal-minded, generous 
and patriotic man and God-fearing citizen, worthy head of a 
family, true friend, reliable man of business, just and exemplary 
officer of State, and true Christian gentleman . 26 And the dili¬ 
gence that is born of disciplined powers and faculties and of a 
pervading sense of duty, and exerts itself with all the mind 
and strength and soul of the possessor, must attend every real 
votary of duty, who aspires to its discharge in its widest scope 
through his life career , 27 and must animate alike parents and 
children. The laboring classes are, and continue poor and igno¬ 
rant, because they do not acquire this diligence, nor a judicious 
and self-controlling economy, and waste not only their sub¬ 
stance, but also the precious hours not devoted to manual or 
clerical labor, and the means for a higher education of their 
children; or because they, through conceit or insubordination, 
cannot hold regular employment. Much of this is, and more 
ought to be, corrected by a proper use of and teaching in these 
institutions, and by the training, discipline and scientific prin¬ 
ciples they inculcate. 


THREE FUNDAMENLAT RULES, ETC. 


41 


CHAPTER VIII. 

THREE FUNDAMENTAL RULES OF LIMITATION AND DUTY. 

Sic utero tuo ut alienum non Icedas , * is the fundamental 
maxim of the common law, by which rights are tested, and be¬ 
yond which begins the boundary of wrongs. It is commonly 
applied in deciding questions affecting rights of user of one’s 
own property and of wrongs and injuries to the property of 
another resulting from any one’s use of one’s own. It means, 
that no one has a right to so use his own property, as in con¬ 
sequence of his act in its use, to inflict injury upon another or 
his property. In morals it has not only that application to 
property or its use, but a broader scope. It prescribes the true 
bounds within which instincts, appetites, emotions and passions 
in their operation affecting others, are innocent and proper, and 
transcending which they become tortious, morally criminal or 
sin. This moral law of duty requires every moral and intelli¬ 
gent being so to use himself, and use and enjoy his propensi¬ 
ties, instincts, affections and passions, and intelligence, and so 
to follow or restrain them as not to injure himself nor his fel¬ 
low beings, nor invade another’s in their like, just and equal 
sphere. The legal maxim thus applied forbids all envy, hatred, 
malice, calumny or detraction, all uncharitableness, all indul¬ 
gence of excessive greed of whatever is another’s and undue 
appropriation of it, all covetousness of aught that is his, all se¬ 
ductions and adulteries by either sex, all indulgence of ambi¬ 
tion to occupy positions of trust, honor or emolument, for lucre 
only, beyond one’s capacities, integrity, skill and fitness, well, 
rightly and independently to discharge its duties. It denounces 
extortions under any forms of law, whether official or unofficial. 
It condemns that use of superior knowledge, capacity and fore¬ 
caste which ravishes from the hands of the toiler without the 
rendition of adequate service or consideration, a more or less 
considerable portion of the guerdons of his toil, mental or 

*So use your own that you injure not another. 




42 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


manual. It denounces that ambition which seeks to rise, and 
that servility to mere wealth or power which procures the ele¬ 
vation of men, from any consideration other than superior qual¬ 
ifications moral and mental, and expertness or fitness. It forbids 
any aspirant to rise by detracting from, or on the ruins of, 
equal or superior worth. It condemns all that system of polit¬ 
ical or religious bigotry or controversy, which bases itself in 
denunciation, misrepresentation, falsehood, perversion, calumny 
or prejudice, which in all ages has been but too characteristic 
of the controversy in politics or religion. It draws a clear, dis¬ 
tinct, definite line beyond which no appetite, instinct, propen¬ 
sity or affection of one human being must pass, to or upon an 
equal domain of like instincts, appetites and affections of an¬ 
other . 28 It is a kindred principle to, but not the same as that 
given by Christ, although the latter doubtless comprehends the 
former. This maxim of the law is the basis only of the nega¬ 
tive virtues, or virtues of self-control and abstinence from vice. 
The maxim of Christ rises higher than any injunction against 
evil-doing; it commends the actual doing of what is right and 
good, and gives, as from God, the rule implanted in, and an 
outgrowth from man’s sympathetic and moral nature, whereby 
to test positive virtue in action. 

“Do unto others, as ye would that they should do unto 
you.” That command is not simply to abstain from evil. It 
is a command to all duty, of every name and kind, to all right 
and just human and Christian activities towards all. It is not 
a command of repression only, but to the discharge of active 
duty by actual deeds and in actual fact. Akin to the last 
maxim is a third positive commandment and it is a law com¬ 
manding the active exercise of simple justice towards man and 
God. “Render unto Caesar, the things that are Caesar’s, and 
unto God, the things that are God’s;” or in other words, 
render unto every one all that is of right his, or is jnstly 
due from you to him, and unto God obedience of his 
laws natural, moral and spiritual, and due adoration, gratitude 
and praise. 

And the great difficulty of much of the so-called moral 
training of parents and others is that it is simply negative and 
repressive, tending to simple inaction, with no sound principle 


43 


THREE FUNDAMENTAL RULES, ETC. 

on which to base even right inaction or abstinence, and is not 
at all a positive training to virtuous activities in the family or 
elsewhere. And repression, if it could succeed fully, would 
reach extinction of faculty or instinct. If such training effect 
any final permanent result, it can effect only passive virtue or 
the virtue of inactivity or nonentity, if that can be deemed a 
virtue. But inaction is not congenial to human character, 
which by innumerable impulses tends to activity ; nor is extinc¬ 
tion of even appetite, or propensity, or instinct desirable or 
possible. They only need to be and can be controlled aright, 
and within their just sphere and limitations. Active virtues 
only are real and effective in quickening power and world 
transforming vitality. The virtue of mere negation and inac¬ 
tion is ever more liable to be overcome or cast aside, or tram¬ 
pled out by the rush of passion, or submerged under the surg¬ 
ing waves of swollen desires. 

While one of these maxims teaches the rule of abstinence 
from all vice, the others impel and compel to the continuous 
exercise of every positive virtue, while one teaches that no man 
has a right to do or indulge himself in doing aught that is in¬ 
jurious to himself or others, or their property, or their feelings, 
or just aspirations, or dignity or self-respect; the other com¬ 
mands a positive acted respect, in living fact and working deed, 
of the whole attributes of mankind in others, and virtue in ac¬ 
tion ; and that we actively, but rightly and honorably only, 
minister to the just pleasures of others, and their right enjoy¬ 
ment derivable from their affections, instincts, sentiments, 
tastes, relations, properties or opinions, and their moral, spirit¬ 
ual and intelligent nature, and to do them in all things active 
good only. 

The sphere of action and government of these three prin¬ 
ciples of morals is co-extensive with the dissemination of the 
human race ; and their application is as diverse or multifarious 
as the instinctive, affectionate, emotional, passional, aesthetic, 
sympathetic, moral and religious nature of man, and the infinite 
variety of His circumstances and conditions. Hot only is no 
one of the attributes of man, which are all and each in their 
several ways well-springs of happiness or pleasure, to be wan¬ 
tonly or thoughtlessly invaded, offended, annoyed, corrupted, 


44 : 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


depraved, wounded or tortured ; but all the just happiness 
attainable through their right gratification and action severally, 
is by all, for all, to be actively promoted. 

On these three principles, negative and positive, must de¬ 
pend every right system of casuistry, or the case law of morals 
in any particular case under any and every circumstance or con¬ 
dition of life. For instance, not only are the bonds of existing 
affection or friendship never to be tampered with, alienated or 
broken, but they are to be brightened, purified, confirmed and 
perpetuated. The rapine which works by the law or under its 
forms is according to both laws, no more righteous and just 
than the rapine which seizes its prey by positive fraud or phy¬ 
sical force. No one by the law of morals, can rightly have 
aught ravished from him, without full compensation, but each 
one must be left to the equal enjoyment of his own. Men may 
rightly become very rich or great by the safe conduct of great 
growing and greatly successful enterprises; but not so by lot¬ 
teries, or speculative enterprises or frauds, deceits or violence, 
which produce and can produce nothing but misery to the 
simple, and no other fruits than a transfer of values from the 
possession of one who has earned them, to the ownership of 
another, who has not earned them, but schemed for their trans¬ 
fer only. Corners and bargains for sale or purchase or loan, 
other than those designed for actual investment of surplus 
means, or for actual bona fide trade purposes, are immoral. 
The profits that are built upon false reports that create a panic 
and .force sacrifices, or that by engendering fallacious hopes 
bring inordinate profits to the vender, or cumulative losses to 
the vendee ; the dividends that, by exhausting the principal or 
stock, create for it an additional apparent value, and all the 
combinations not permanent and really beneficial to an enter¬ 
prise, that raise or depress stocks or products temporarily or 
fictitiously, are but robberies by gamblings. They rob alike rich 
and poor who gamble in them or who purchase at excessive 
prices. The seductive wiles that translate confidence or affec¬ 
tion from one to whom they are due to any other, are, even 
when they are attended by no other criminality, as much more 
criminal than a fraud upon mere property, as love and trust are 
of more value than any mere externals. God’s law obeyed re- 


45 


DUTY TO ONE’S SELF, ETC. 

quires, that in the very act of acquiring &ught for ourselves, 
we do good somewhere or to somebody; and these two, good 
to one’s self and to another, go together in all the honest and 
commendable avocations of life. And this law forbids, not 
legitimate brokerage, nor restaurants and hotels; but the 
gambling that attends the first, and mere gin mills under the 
name of the last. Man, aspiring supremely to wealth, power 
and luxury, or even a mere livelihood, is never safe ; and, if he 
attain the most eminent success, it is great only in the things of 
this brief life. It is a far nobler aspiration to have it said 
of him: 

“A truer, trustier, nobler heart, 

More loving or more loyal, never beat 
In human bosom." 

And as such love and trust cannot be deserved, except by 
real worth and virtue ; and, as it cannot be retained without 
deserving it; and, as man is of little worth in the world or to 
the world, or to himself without a sound mind in a sound body ; 
another primary rule of duty is, that man must acquire and 
steadily practice that virtue and knowledge, which alone can 
maintain a sound, vigorous and healthful mind and a sound, 
healthy body —Mens sana in corpore sano. And this leads to 
the consideration of man’s duty to himself—a duty, without 
the fulfillment of which he cannot be fit with certainty, to per¬ 
form any other, otherwise than feebly or remittingly, if at all. 


CHAPTER IX. 

DUTY TO ONE’S SELF-TEMPERANCE OR MODERATION. 

Few men, even of those who are animated by the most in¬ 
tensely self-indulgent and self-seeking impulses, ever imagine 
that they have or owe a duty to themselves other than in self¬ 
gratification or self-indulgence. Yet none can know much of 
man’s mental and psychical, or physical, or physiological nature, 
without recognizing the liability of either to the most grave 
and serious disorders or diseases, from breaches of this duty. 



46 


VIA MORALIS VLNCENDI. 


The duty of a diligent use of his time and faculty, and of 
improving, cultivating and energizing all his moral and intelli¬ 
gent faculties has already been treated of. 

Another duty involved in or evolving from the principles 
laid down in the last chapter, is a duty due primarily to him¬ 
self—the duty of moderation or temperance. This duty is 
triune, for, as man’s soul-nature is triune, either element of 
that nature may be impaired by excess or injured by perver¬ 
sion or gain undue mastery over the others. And therefore, it 
is his duty, first to acquire such a knowledge of physiology and 
hygiene as is necessary to preserve the body in health and make 
it more robust and effective, and carefully to practice their prin¬ 
ciples applicable to the common affairs of life ; and secondly, to 
learn the pernicious effects of inordinate or perverse indulgence 
of any appetite, instinct or passion, or even of exalted and too 
protracted intellectual efforts or of spiritual engrossment; and 
to restrain each and every one of them within the bounds of 
that moderation which is consistent with health, even when 
they act only towards their proper objects; and third, while 
diligently cultivating the mental powers, never to over-tag the 
physical organization or exhaust it; and, in order to obey these 
three precepts, it is necessary that besides a due information of 
the intelligence, the conscience shall ever be vigilant and guided 
by sound principles of physiology, morals and religion, and 
cease to be ruled by any mere instinct and desire whatever. 
And so we shall deserve and preserve, not only sound health of 
body and soul, but also the respect of others: and what is even 
more important, our own self-respect . 29 

If conscience were indeed “the voice of God in the soul,” 
it would be infallible; the rules of morality would need no 
study, and there would be no persecutions for opinion’s sake, 
such as have characterized man’s generations, pagan or Christian, 
in matters of art, science, politics or religion. 30 Conscience is 
universal and immortal; but it is only a blind instinct or im¬ 
pulse to learn, know, and do the right—pained by the belief of 
having done wrong—pleased with the imagination of doing or 
having done the right, and, although its impulse and its agony 
are of God, man’s conclusions of right and of wrong are as 
fallible as human reason and the bias of human passions can 


DUTY TO ONE’S SELF, ETC. 47 

make them. It is agonized, not only by actual wrong-doing, 
but by belief of wrong-doing, just as affection is tormented not 
only by actual indifference, and unkindness of the loved, but by 
a jealous belief of infidelity; and this agony is known as re¬ 
morse. It creates the longing desire to know and do the 
right. 31 It is the basis of a righteous and temperate character, 
but it is not, nor is the character infallible nor spotless. He 
who has no conscience, or an imbecile or inert one, is most like¬ 
ly to believe himself perfect and to entertain loose or no views 
of right and wrong, and little idea of duty other than such as 
his clamorous passions may proclaim to be his own due or his 
own rights. Here he is voluble, trenchant and clear. But he 
is apt to be excessive in his exactions of affection, friendship, 
power and pelf as due to himself, and to render to others cor¬ 
respondency little of even their just dues. He is the ego to 
whom all his morals point and in whom they centre. He is 
color-blind in morals, except through a sound learning of its 
principles incorported into his mental constitution, and even 
then, he easily over-rules them. And herein lies the urgent 
need of moral studies. The conscience, that is not trained 
from infancy to know and constantly to do the right, 32 and to 
true moderation or a due abstinence in all the little affairs and 
sports of childhood, is slowly or rapidly lapsing into imbecility 
or perversion. The conscience, which though enlightened as 
to the temperate or the right, is daily overcome by the temp¬ 
tations to the intemperate or the wrong, is already imbecile and 
may become powerless, except for the infliction of the tortures 
of remorse, and perhaps even for that. For such, alas, as so 
harden their hearts, there is but little hope of rescue from perdi¬ 
tion, except in the complete withdrawal from temptation or 
an entire change of associates, from those who tempt to such as 
are proof against temptation. The daily prayer “Lead us not 
into temptation” is of God, but can be made effectual only by 
the co-operation of the spiritual faculties and human will with 
the Divine Spirit. Otherwise it is but a mockery of God and 
a delusion to the petitioner. 33 In regard to any particular line 
of real temptation, few are so strong, that they can resist it; 
when they put themselves persistently in the way of both the 
temptation and the opportunity to indulge the ruling passion of 


48 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


their character; and it is characteristic of every temptation to 
arise in the presence of, or to seek its object and opportunity. 
But greatly less is the number of those who cannot refrain from 
placing themselves within the sphere of both temptation and 
opportunity. Temptation is from within ourselves and may 
follow us everywhere. Opportunity cannot so follow and may 
be avoided. Hence the wisdom of the injunction to “flee from 
temptation”—which means especially that we should flee from 
all occasion and opportunity to indulge it, or from its objects. 
We may remember that Christ was “tempted, yet without sin.” 
To be tempted is not sin; but to cherish the temptation and 
permit or seek opportunity, is itself the sin of the soul. 

The injunction to live within our means, is not a prin¬ 
ciple of economy only; but one of the first principles of tem¬ 
perance, and of that justice that accords to every man his due . 34 
But appetite, vanity, propensity and ambition crave their ob¬ 
jects intemperately, and their cravings are literally without 
limit. Attainment in one degree but incites cravings for enjoy¬ 
ment in a higher degree, and he, who is ever over-mastered by 
such cravings, or any of them, wrecks himself, and does injus¬ 
tice to others, and may wreck those who most love and trust 
him and have in him a blind and erring faith and hope. 35 

But, although we indulge in no excesses of hope or osten¬ 
tation, of passion, luxury or appetite that wrongs others, we 
may indulge such as wrong ourselves only. The glutton, the 
wine-bibber, the spendthrift, the miser, the man athirst for 
vain and empty applause, the man of a restless and too vault¬ 
ing ambition, the student who consumes too liberally the mid¬ 
night hours and hours of early dawn, the dreamer of vain, 
erring and baseless dreams founded on nothing but the illusions 
of his selfish hope, the self-abuser and the victim of unnatural 
or conjugal excesses, and he, who gives undue license to any de¬ 
sire, fall within this category of wrong doers to themselves, even 
when they injure only themselves. They enervate mind and 
body and conscience, and reverence by a base idolatry of in¬ 
stincts and 36 depraving excesses. 

Soundness and vigor of mind and body, being alike the 
gift of God and ordinary law of nature, no man has a right so 
to use, indulge or abuse any attribute of his nature as to injure, 


49 


DUTY TO ONE’S SELF, ETC. 

inpair or deprave any other, and this is the cardinal moral law 
of temperance, 37 and it is self-evident that there are many 
forms of intemperance not less depraving and fatal to human¬ 
ity, and not less common, although perhaps more secret and less 
talked about, than intemperance in the use and abuse of intox¬ 
icating liquors, or other stimulants or narcotics. And, in fact, 
the abuse of the latter generally follows or attends some other 
*form of self-abuse, which demands them or their stimuli to re¬ 
energize the system, if only for a time. Temperance then, 
in a broader sense than the word is used by the disciples 
of anti-alcoholism, now one of the great reformatory move¬ 
ments or agitations of the day, is undoubtedly a fundamental 
law of morals, in a violation of which in relation to any in¬ 
stinct, propensity or affection, there can be no virtue. In other 
words, while it is undoubtedly permissible and virtuous to alike 
pursue, attain and rationally enjoy the natural objects of every 
instinct, propensity or faculty which God implants in man, by 
right means; to pursue or enjoy any of such objects by wrong 
means, with wrong objects or to excess, or otherwise than with¬ 
in temperate limits, is a wrong, and not a proper enjoyment 
but an abuse of them. The rule of this just temperance is not 
only that every man or woman shall so pursue and moderately 
enjoy the proper objects of each desire that he shall not there¬ 
by injure others, but that he shall so order and confine the pur¬ 
suit and enjoyment of each, as shall not unduly deny or starve 
any other rightful instinct, affection or desire in himself, and 
especially not the-higher instincts that prompt to family duties 
or the duties required by benevolence, conscience and religion. 
In other words, true temperance requires that he shall learn to 
measure his capacity and his means, and so enjoy any object of 
desire, or refrain partially from its enjoyment, as to devote a 
due portion of his earnings to the discharge of the whole round 
of duty and moderated indulgence of each form of desire; and, 
it becomes thereby apparent that the standard of temperance 
and necessary self-denial varies in the individual with the 
standard of his capacity and means; and these vary always with 
the intelligence and vigor of effort, discipline and toil. One 
who is not capable of a reasonable exercise of either, can be but 
a dependent, a pauper or a criminal, to a greater or less extent, 


50 


VIA MOKALIS VINCENDI. 


or constantly on the verge of either dependence, pauperism or 
crime, unless he can practice the greatest and most stringent 
economy or self-denial. And that, which is temperance, in¬ 
ostentation for example, in one condition of life, may be and is 
an intemperate excess and a violation of duty in another. “Live 
within your means,” that is to say, so far within as to have some 
ability to discharge every duty—is not a law of miserly econ¬ 
omy, but of sound morals. « 

But even as to the rich and the capable, excess or intem¬ 
perance is immoral. Excess in food, drinks, the immoderate 
or lawless indulgence of any appetite, affection or passion, may 
curse the home, and wreck health, fortune and happiness, and 
so may excessive cravings, without indulging in any other ex¬ 
cess, wreck happiness by the discontent and ill-temper they 
engender. And such excessive cravings ever exist when man 
or woman craves aught beyond what their will, capacity and 
honest efforts can command, and attempt to measure his or her 
right of enjoyment by the standard of the apparent enjoyments 
of any other, of whose different, intense toil, or hidden self- 
denial, or low and vile means of luxurious living they know 
nothing. No passion ought to rule the man or woman, but 
each and all must be held in subordination to his righteous will, 
conscience, benevolence and a discerning intellect; or to the 
authority of religion, as expounded by the church. Man or 
woman alike, must be, not in name only or capriciously, but 
according to the dictates of a sound judgment and intelligence, 
and constantly master of himself, and subject to the divine law 
of human life and being and real happiness. 

“The passions insolent and strong, 

Bear our quick minds their rapid course along; 

Make us the madness of their will obey, 

Then die, and leave us to our griefs a prey. ” 

But there are times, occasions, persons, things as to which 
and when they cannot be indulged at all, and here another duty 
than that of temperance supervenes, and that is the duty of 
total abstinence and avoidance of and flight from temptation, 
to which avoidance, self-control and self-denial are in a greater 
or less degree necessary pre-requisites. Such was the wise act 


51 


DUTY TO ONE’S SELF, ETC. 

of Joseph when actually solicited by Potipliar's wife; in the im¬ 
mediate presence of opportunity, he fled from her. 

This practice of temperance and self-control is the great 
safeguard against wrong-doing, and these virtues need to be 
practiced, not against one perverting and perverted appetite 
only, but against every desire or lust, even when their cravings 
are innocent. The multitude of our desires give to every human 
being both limitless incentives to useful and engrossing activity 
and abundant opportunity to practice this habit and power of 
self-denial and self-control, for few can rightly indulge even all 
innocent desires. But abstinence from things and deeds not 
strongly desired, does not necessarily train these powers. They 
must be trained from the earliest years of childhood, by in¬ 
ducing the child voluntarily to abstain from indulgence of de¬ 
sire and to prefer the discharge of duty and useful toils to 
them, aild the constant subordination of inclination and desire. 
The best control of the child by the parent is not a discipline 
of this self-control in the child, although the former may tend 
to it; but it may also arouse the spirit of discontent and rebel¬ 
lion. The child must be early taught the inestimable value of 
duty, and so be led voluntarily to sacrifice to it his inclinations 
and desires as to things and at times and hours which he is per¬ 
mitted to control at will. When passions are really aroused, pre¬ 
cepts alone, however wise, are but feeble barriers to confine 
their flood' in its wild course, and the too fond parent, who has 
been only and ever eager to anticipate and gratify even every 
innocent desire of the child, and has led him through all his 
young life to no voluntary sacrifice of any of them to duty, 
will find that he has educated his child in that imperious spirit 
of constant self-indulgence, which will make him gradually 
more wayward and insubordinate; and will make it more and 
more difficult for either the parents or the child ; in his ado¬ 
lescence, to control or deny any clamorous passion of his nature. 
The power of self-control can alone ensure temperance as the 
power of self-denial can alone ensure total abstinence. And, 
except to fortify this power by the supposed addition of a new 
additional honorary obligation, pledges are vain; and only the 
grace or power imparted by religious or Christian ordinances 
and sacraments rightly understood and taken, are of any real 


52 


VIA VINCENDI MORALIS. 


efficacy as to* such appetites as are otherwise controlling. And 
man needs, and has in a degree the inauguration of a broader 
and higher agitation than that of ante-alcoholism, which is and 
has been the special province of the church. He needs the more 
constant practicing and teaching, in church and Sunday school, 
of a more active crusade against intemperance and vice in gen¬ 
eral, and severally, and less of sectarian dogmas, controversial 
or unquestioned. He needs too a stricter discipline of its every 
member and minister, in order to ensure true nobility and 
amelioration in mankind— 

“The noble mind unconscious of a fault 
No fortune’s power can daunt or foes assault, 

Like the firm rock, that in mid-ocean braves 
The war of whirlwinds and the shock of waves.” 

The mind or soul, in this life, so far as we know any attri¬ 
butes of matter, having no attribute of it, and being therefore 
rightly deemed to be immaterial, is yet known to act through 
and by material organs and structures upon external things ; 
and hence, practically, the knowledge and practice of obedience 
to the laws of physical health or of the material organiza¬ 
tion, are in this life scarcely less momentous than a knowledge 
of man’s mental, moral and passional faculties or desires, 
and their office and limit. And this involves necessarily 
the study of at least the principal laws of physiology and 
hygiene as a whole, and not in special reference to one 
abuse only. And no man or woman is fit to enter into the 
marital state and assume the responsibility of the care of off¬ 
spring, without some knowledge of the material organization 
and its laws, as well as of the moral and mental constitution of 
man, which last knowledge can alone give definite ideas of vices 
or virtues in their several species. Even physical efforts have 
their necessary limit. Even play must be regulated, or it ex¬ 
hausts, and so must mere amusements be limited or they be¬ 
come dissipations. It is the unquestionable and unquestioned 
duty of the husband and wife to care for and wisely guard each 
other’s health and the health of their mutual offspring, and en¬ 
force and practice the necessary duty of proper care and reason¬ 
able temperance in all things; but ignorance of the laws of 
health and vigor, and of all laws moral and spiritual, cannot do 


DUTIES INCIDENT TO FAMILY RELATION, ETC. 


53 


it, but must tend to produce or give ready access to mental, 
moral or bodily disease and infirmity, or to all of these 
combined. 


CHAPTER X. 

DUTIES INCIDENT TO FAMILY RELATION AND OF SEXUAL LOVE. 

The family relation is unquestionably the most tender, 
trustful, intimate, endearing and sacred, of all the merely human 
relations of earth. 

Although not an “outward and visible sign of an inward 
and spiritual grace” perhaps, and therefore not accounted by 
the Protestant world a sacrament according to their definition 
of that term, it is nevertheless an ordinance of God, deeply 
rooted in the nature of man, and among the Roman Catholics 
it is accounted as a sacrament. “Therefore,” says Holy Writ, 
“shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave 
unto his wife and they twain shall be one flesh.” 

Though fools spurn Hymen’s gentle powers, 

We who improve his golden hours 
By sweet experience know, 

That marriage, rightly understood, 

Gives to the tender and the good, 

A paradise below.” 

The passion that softens the manners of each sex towards 
the other as the years of maturity supervene ; that attracts each 
to the other for life; that populates the world and makes it an 
Eden of Love, even amid toils, difficulties and struggles and 
anxiety, is of God, and tends to matrimony, 38 and enforces the 
command given at the beginning to all creatures, to “increase 
and multiply and replenish the earth,” and this is its function 
that sanctifies and hallows it, and lifts it in intelligent beings from 
mere gross sensuality into idealism as an ordinance of God. 

The relative equality in the members of the two sexes, 
proclaims the God-ordained law of monogamous marriage, and 
polygamy is an infringement of that law. Old bachelorism and 
old maidism is its opposite violation. “Let every man have 



54 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband” is 
the instruction of the apostle, “to avoid fornification.” 39 

“Thou art the nurse of virtue—in thine arms, 

She smiles, appearing, as in truth she is, 

Heaven-born, and destined to the skies again.” 

And the increase of celibacy is a sign of evil omen, and 
the causes that lead to it, need to be watched and guarded 
against and removed. Among them is unquestionably the 
spirit and examples of emulation in palaces, fineries, extrava¬ 
gance, equipage, luxurious food, costly raiment, sumptuous en¬ 
vironments, and other fashions beyond the ordinary means of 
common men. The young can begin the world where the most 
successful end it, only at the risk of permanent wreck or agony. 

Lying at the basis of society, indispensable to the contin¬ 
uance of population in the world, and of human life upon the 
earth, and ordained perhaps to evoke of necessity the most in¬ 
tense and indefatigable toil of which either sex is capable, sex¬ 
ual love is, as is demonstrated by the general current of litera¬ 
ture, not wholly didactic or descriptive, the most universal, and 
most spontaneous and powerful of human instincts and pas¬ 
sions, and it needs to be so, or it would, as in many cases it now 
does, shrink from the burdens its indulgence commonly im¬ 
poses. No comedy or tragedy, no novel or romance and few 
tales are written or read, in which this passion is not a part of 
the warp or woof of the “old, old story of human love.” 
Base and grovelling in the brute, it is glorified by the imagina¬ 
tion and ideality of the man, and hallowed by his conscience 
and religion, and the oracles of God, and, in all but the vain 
and the fickle and brutal, is constant to its one object, from 
its maturity to its rest in the grave. 

Bnt it brings with its maturity, not only marriage and its 
necessary services, but also the duty of daily practice of the 
same wooing and winsome ways and acts, that originally won 
affection, in order to preserve or perpetuate it, and constant 
temperance in its own gratifications. 40 

No less universal is the instinct of tender affection for the 
infant offspring of the union—an affection which grows in the 
pure heart with the growth of the child and adds new links of 


DUTIES INCIDENT TO FAMILY RELATION, ETC. 55 

joy to the indissoluble marriage bond, and a new love to bless 
and hallow the sanctuary of home. And, on the part of the 
children, who are trained and cared for aright, it brings to the 
home bubbling founts of perennial joy, and the lights of inno¬ 
cent gladness, unfaltering faith and trust, reverence and obe¬ 
dience, which strengthen in the child from the dawn of its first 
intelligence of parental care and its dependance on it and God, 
up to and into the years of maturity. And, as the duty of the 
tutelage, care and support of successive offspring until they ar¬ 
rive at years of discretion and wisdom, is ordinarily a life-long 
duty devolving on both parents alike, it indicates that the God 
of nature has ordained this monogamous marriage to be indis¬ 
soluble and to endure for the life-time of the amorous contract¬ 
ing parties. 

An engagement so grave, serious and enduring , 1 must 
be attended by duties both precedent and consequent, and the 
unfitness of members of either sex for their due discharge must 
necessarily tend to the decadence of marriage or to suffering in 
it. It cannot of right, in rational beings, be mere matter of in¬ 
stinct, accident, passion, bargain and sale, convenience or other 
heedless or unhallowed motive. Each of the parties, while not 
expecting perfection in the other, ought to know, not only that 
the external and visible features and forms and manners are 
comely or attractive to them, but also something of the real 
temper and capabilities of the other, and that each is chaste, 
true, gentle, constant, willing to labor usefully, and capable of 
lifting or assisting to lift the burdens, and discharge the duties 
of their condition, and to contribute to the mutual happiness of 
all the family, and the just training by both precept and exam¬ 
ple of the offspring, and that each will be willing and proper 
hel ps to each other, and patient and contented in their sphere 
and probable condition in life, alike in prosperity and in re¬ 
verse or difficulties. Marriage in rational and all-aspiring be¬ 
ings, although promoted by instinct, needs to be eminently 
rational also. They who dream that love or the sentiment of 
mutual attraction, should alone rule this alliance, may possibly 
become conformed to each other, and to their condition in life 
and its duties; but they debase it from its high estate of a ra¬ 
tional and God-ordained institution to the mere creature of p, 


56 


YIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


simple sensuous attraction. It is exalted, only when passion 
follows reason and judgment, and is subordinated to duty ; 
although it cannot have its sole origin in a lofty hallowing sense 
of duty only. And marriage, so rationally and lovingly con¬ 
tracted, and with no intervening hypocrisy or willful blindness 
or delusion on one side or the other, can rarely fail to realize a 
full portion of such felicity as may reasonably be expected to 
attend upon married life on earth. 

Another preliminary to be insisted on in all cases is, that 
either of the parties should have and own a home, and that one 
of them should have a fixed business and be able to make to it 
all necessary supplies, and that the other has full care and skill 
or capacity to use them economically and well, and is capable 
of well-caring and toiling for and supervising the home and 
household. If they cannot secure a home before marriage by 
their united effort, they are not likely to do so with children to 
be provided and cared for. But human couples, like all others, 
are designed for the seclusion and the hospitalities of their own 
homes; and neither crowded tenements, hotels or boarding 
houses conduce to that dutiful behavior, constancy of affection, 
mutual reverence, decent privacy, closer union and continued 
felicity, which are essential to the welfare of the family. If 
the husband or the wife are worth the seeking or the having, 
they can at least content themselves apart until they get a home 
for the family, unless they know that they cau better achieve it 
by united efforts in the married state. 

As to the duties that attend the married state, they are mul¬ 
tifarious enough to require a volume, for the family is the great 
centre of human life and organization, around which all other 
interests revolve and crystalize, to which all tend, and from 
which all real terrestrial and eternal good proceeds. 

It may be truly said, that all the courtesies, duties and 
amenities, which attend upon our intercourse and dealings with 
friends or strangers, are still more obligatory toward the dear 
ones of the household, and from each to each. Courtesy, candor, 
truthfulness, fidelity, diligence, honesty, affection, good man¬ 
ners, good breeding, justice, benevolence, self-control, intelli¬ 
gence, watchfulness, patience, all find their special and daily 
and hourly school of practice in the brightest and best of homes. 


DUTIES INCIDENT TO FAMILY RELATION, ETC. 5T 

It is only needful here to touch upon the more peculiar duties 
of married life. 

And, first of all is the duty of system, or that of regulat¬ 
ing or maintaining a proper division and sphere of work, and a 
due and regular allotment of time each day, for the work of 
each. The husband must get to his business in season, and the 
children to their school, and all to the church and the Sunday 
school; and these facts must rule in the daily allotment of time 
for household purposes. Irregular, disorderly, unsystematic 
work is nowhere productive of the best results, nor anywhere 
consistent with peace, contentment, success or happiness. In 
general and with rare exceptions, nature, instinct and training 
alike lit the male for the more difficult, toilsome and arduous 
and dangerous work of the co-partnership of love, and the 
rougher contacts of life. It is the male bird who goes abroad 
for food, while the female, hid among sheltering leaves, in¬ 
cubates the eggs and hovers and protects the young. Woman’s 
tastes, education, and her era of maternity, all indicate her 
adaptation to the lighter, more aesthetic, more benevolent and 
peaceful offices of the home life. Woman’s sphere is evidently 
that of the tidy, beautiful home, the vigilant, loving educator 
of her children ; the guardian angel of the fireside ; the pure 
priestess of its most hallowed sanctuary, and its queen. In 
general, man’s life and labors must combat for victory in the 
long and arduous strife of life against the power of adverse cir¬ 
cumstances or stubborn forces of nature, or emulous rivals, or a 
fickle public, to win from them for the feebler inmates of the 
household, their means of subsistence, comfort and graceful 
and elegant decoration. The man works in and directs the 
bread-winning business with its rough and often low contacts 
and combats. The woman, enshrined from rude contact with 
miscellaneous crowds and from impure association and all vul¬ 
garity, husbands his earnings, and studies cheerfully and loving¬ 
ly to supply with them the countless comforts and elegant 
adornments of home, and to guide, order and discipline the 
household in such ways as to be most promotive of the real 
happiness and improvement of the entire family circle. * She 
is not and cannot be degraded into the mere menial servant, 
even when and where she does the menial’s work, for she is not 


58 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


only its doer but director, and her motive is love and duty and 
not the hireling’s wages. However arduous her toil or narrow 
her income, she is queen there, and her duties and responsibili¬ 
ties are incomparably higher than those of a mere household 
drudge. She is, and ought to be, its central object of regard, at¬ 
traction and reverence; but this she cannot be without a con¬ 
stant cleanliness and sweetness of person and surroundings and 
a lustrous purity of character. She ought to be with her hus¬ 
band, the sanctifier of the sanctuary of home, but this she can¬ 
not be unless she is herself sanctified and holy. She ought to 
be queen and ruler of her little domain : and this she cannot be 
unless she can rule her own spirit and studies and knows how 
to rule others and her household at least, vigilantly and aright. 
While the husband is abroad, and the children are not in school, 
in her hands rests the trust of forming them for time and eter¬ 
nity ; but she cannot do this rightly and well, even if she be 
otherwise competent, without vigilant observation and knowl¬ 
edge of their words, acts, companionship and constant precept, 
persuasion, example, reproof, encouragement, correction and 
perhaps punishment, at all times. 

‘‘To aid thy mind’s development, to watch 
The dawn of little joys—to sit and see 

Almost thy very growth—to view thee catch 
Knawledge of objects—wonders yet to see.” 

This is the true maternal instinct and duty. But she can¬ 
not do it when they are out of sight or out of mind, either in 
the street, the yard or in some remote corner of the home. Her 
husband’s perpetuity of affection, her children’s gratitude and 
reverence for her, depend upon her own gentle, affectionate 
discharge of each and all her household duties promptly, sea¬ 
sonably, vigilantly and well; which is the best and highest 
ordinary form of manifestation of her love and real preference 
for them, and of that zeal for their welfare, which such love 
o ily can always engender. Excuses do not bring comfort to 
the home. The words of affection and the language of love, 
however varied, may perhaps, by much repetition, become 
commonplace, “fiat, stale and unprofitable but this real woo- 
ing by mutual acts of vigilant courtesy, tenderness, attention 
and ever-practical acts of constant marital kindness, and a con- 


59 


DUTIES INCIDENT TO FAMILY RELATION, ETC. 

siderate consultation of mutual tastes, conveniences and desires, 
is only begun with marriage, and is a life-long mode of wooing, 
that is ever appreciated and never wearies its recipient. 

The husband has assumed the burden of support, and, 
whether he has done so calculating its cost aright or not, if he 
has married aright, and the two conduct themselves aright, it 
must be his highest terrestrial pleasure as well as duty, to seek 
and hold to, and diligently and faithfully perform some work, 
the compensation for which shall be adequate to supply all the 
necessary comforts for the family ; he can at no time, in justice 
to it, sit and wait for work to come to him, or neglect the op¬ 
portunity of any known work at hand, to do which he is capa¬ 
ble, and plead his inability. It is too late for that plea or for 
false pride. He has assumed a duty, as to which excuses avail 
naught, and must fulfill it. He must nerve himself to seek, 
and make himself equal to do, the imperative work, and, if not 
already fitted, he must fit himself to do it. And the wife has 
no right to complain of his indolence, or failure, or incapacity 
—facts that a little inquiry before marriage would have made 
patent to her, but must entice to better deeds. The wife, while 
the family is small, may, and especially when he is unfortunately 
disabled or compulsively idle, ought to aid him according to 
her ability. When she marries, without learning her husband’s 
means or skill in affairs, or the want of it, and his capabilities, 
she too assumes the burden of support to such extent as it may 
rest upon her; and, if she knew or ought to have known his in¬ 
capacity, then she, by the very act of marriage, deliberately as¬ 
sumed it in fact and duty, whatever might have been her hope 
or intention. Together they have assumed, consciously or 
ignorantly the burden, which, if they are rightly constituted, 
ought to be a joy as well as a burden. And the true conscien¬ 
tious model wife, fortunate or erring in her marital choice, ever 
seeks and is ever ready, not to scold or quarrel, but inspire— 

“ To cheer thy sickness, watch thy health, 

Partake, but never waste thy wealth, 

Or stand with smile unmurmuring by 
And lighten half thy poverty !” 

Except they are sick or physically disabled, or incapacitated 
by mental imbecility, they have no moral right to lean upon 


60 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


others, or to lean upon public or pauper aid. They owe it to 
the dignity of their own manhood and womanhood, and to their 
children, to independently themselves bear the brunt of the 
duties and burdens which devolve upon them by their own act, 
and by the due training and exercise of their own powers, to 
lift themselves to the common level of ordinarily pressing 
duties at least. When they fall below this level, and lean upon 
public or private unearned help, they fall below the commonest 
standard of manhood and womanhood and confess themselves 
incapables and imbeciles; and so even the polite world cannot 
but regard them, and this is the real stigma or disgrace of the 
pauper and the criminal, when pauperism and crime 41 come 
not from some casualty of temporary duration and, even in 
that case perhaps, the disgrace of improvidence and want of 
due self-control, preventing any provision for a contingency, 
may attach. And hence, they who blazon to the world their 
poverty, vaunting their integrity, but too generally receive, not 
the credit they would fain have of superior honesty, but of folly 
or incompetency, and they but blazon their own disgrace. 

The wife, on the other hand, has as her special sphere, as¬ 
sumed the queenship of the narrow realms of home, and be¬ 
come chief servitor there, and the duties thus devolved upon 
her must be preferred by her to all other duties, pleasures or 
affairs, and she can by no means and for no cause neglect them, 
for other duties may be attended to by others; but these can be 
discharged only by herself. However untrained, uninformed or 
incapable she may be in the beginning, she must strive daily and 
energetically to acquire all necessary information, skill and 
right practice, and daily add to her fitness to discharge rapidly, 
skilfully and timely her every obligation to the household, or 
to intelligently direct and economically supervise it, and the 
husband must encourage her so to do. Even if she has abund¬ 
ant help, she must see and know that all is well and timely 
done, and is right and in order. Even if she have to help earn 
the means of subsistence, she must not neglect her own special 
office. And the husband must forbear while she is learning her 
new duties. When affluence blesses the married pair, the yet 
more difficult task of vigilant supervision of servants, their 
work and their honesty, and of self-restraint and the restraint 


DUTIES INCIDENT TO FAMILY RELATION, ETC. 61 

of children from excessive indulgences, becomes a yet more 
difficult duty. 

Each has assumed, in many cases, too heedlessly and 
thoughtlessly, the task of training the family, and cannot shirk 
the office of co-educators of the household. They have assumed 
the function of trainers, a duty of like character with that of all 
other trainers. They may delegate the function in part to 
teachers, but the superior and primary responsibility is their 
own, and still rests upon them. One has become high-priest, 
and the other high-priestess of the altars of home, and they 
alone can and must discharge this duty and set an example 
worthy of their high calling, must admonish in things moral 
and spiritual, and must inspire to the discharge of duty and 
with the spiritual graces, and to a spiritual life, their little fold. 

And among all these cares, duties and responsibilities, the 
parents cannot shut themselves and children, like an oyster in 
its shell, in their little or great homes, or like an anchorite in 
his lair relinquish society, but they must be given to courtly or 
humble and inexpensive hospitality, that their children may 
form worthy and improving associations, and be formed to the 
best social intercourse within their reach, and to all the ameni¬ 
ties and courtesies of elegant or polite social life. 

Yet home is not only the school of practice and training 
school of the moral and spiritual nature of its inmates ; but it 
must be the vigilant assistant of all the education in the secular 
school, the Sunday school and in the church. The parent who 
assumes that children and schools do their full duty, and 
seldom, if ever, knows what progress the child is really making, 
will, in general, at some late day, find his children laggard or 
formal in their supposed learning, without understanding, and 
the cause of retarding others in the same classes. The greatest 
defect that renders progress in school learning so tardy as to 
cause reasonable and just complaint, and uses up a quarter or a 
third of human life in mere rudimentary studies, is doubtless, 
not in the schools or the teacher; but in the assumption of 
parents that all depends upon the teacher, and that children, 
who have opportunities, are making good use of them, and that 
they, the parents, have no part in the school education, nor in 
that of the Sunday school or the church. But, when the home 


62 


VIA M0RALI8 VINCENDI. 


influence, vigilance and inspiration is pretermitted, the most 
potential of educational influence is laid aside. 

The relation of husband and wife is one of peculiar confi¬ 
dence and trust, and it admits of no intermediaries and no com¬ 
munications in regard to its affairs, relations and disappoint¬ 
ments, however confidential, to any; and hence infidelity by 
secret communication of private affairs may be but the begin¬ 
ning of other and grosser alienation and infidelity, and tale¬ 
bearing abroad of home affairs and home secrets becomes the 
origin of fatal estrangement, and it is one of the worst of mar¬ 
ital vices. And a lack of candor and mutual counsel at home, 
in preference to their exhibition abroad among uninterested 
and probably careless or incapable strangers, is one of the worst 
of matrimonial wrongs and follies, for they two, alone in the 
wide world, have a common interest in everything to pursue; 
and they two, of all the world, ought to know best every cir¬ 
cumstance affecting the question to be solved. There must be 
no intervention of man or woman, father or mother, between 
the husband and the wife; and complaints are idle and useless, 
unless a separation is indispensable. Such intervention is really 
a separation, temporary or permanent, begun. Intolerable ills 
the law must right, all others must be corrected at home by 
reason, judgment, forbearance and patience. Suspicion and 
jealousy should have no place in this relation, nor the acts that 
may reasonably give rise to either. Preference should ever be 
indicated only towards the husband or the w T ife in word or act, 
unvaried even in sport, for such sport is dangerous. The aspi¬ 
ration of hearts really wed must ever be. 

“Let mutual joy our mutual trust combine 

And love and love-born confidence be thine.” 

The spirit of contention and discord, of jealousy and hate, 
of anger and resentment, are for wise purposes quick to flash 
fire. “Behold how great a fire a little spark kindleth!” These 
spirits cannot haunt the home without its wreck and ruin. 
The spirit of discord must remain a stranger there. The spirit 
of contention 42 must be avoided and wholly suppressed. If 
recollections differ, neither can or should attempt to secure 
agreement otherwise than by recalling incidental circumstances 


DUTIES INCIDENT TO FAMILY RELATION, ETC. 63 

or facts by which a more correct recollection may be attained 
of the main fact. There should be no struggle for victory nor 
desire of .triumph. No argument can change a fact or a recol¬ 
lection, for facts are not matters for logic, but of memory. If 
creeds differ and temperate argument and example is unavail¬ 
ing, the husband and wife must agree to disagree; but in all 
cases, a winning course of conduct, and a shining example of 
unremitting virtue is the best of logicians, and more persuasive 
than logomachy. Each must make, at least in matters not of 
vital practical importance, a reasonable effort to agree; and, in 
ail matters of graver importance, must be sure to know and 
concede the right, and to practice mutual forbearance and for¬ 
giveness. Whatever good of married life is worth winning, 
must be wooed and won, as the husband or wife were won, not 
by aggravated and aggravating contests, but through all the 
winning ways and wooing arts of love. 

The spirit of contention prompts to the opposite line of 
conduct, and is the spirit of alienation. It dissevers and dis¬ 
unites whenever and wherever it comes into action ; and, often 
renewed is the fore-runner of hatred, open or concealed. It is the 
constant foe of amity and peace. It exaggerates variances and 
intensifies discords. Its exhibition not only degrades the parent 
in fact, but lowers the reverence of the children for either parent 
and for their teaching, which should go forth with the united 
authority of both. Angry words and ill-mannered deeds are 
copied by the children both in play and in earnest, and form 
evil precedents. Quarrels and contentions in the seniors tend 
to foster like quarrels or querulousness in the children, even 
when parents have not by heredity transmitted that disposition 
to the children. It is the most noxious malaria of the home 
life, deadly to all its precious amenities and affections. The 
more that spirit is uncontrolled or fostered, the more surely all 
the virtues of the home life perish; and, the home, however 
elegant and palatial, or lowly but tasteful, that might without 
that spirit have been a paradise of bliss, is converted into a 
mere prison of the wretched or a hell of discordant hates and 
furies. Is there anything in our idea of hell, more terrible 
than the discords and hates of the damned? 

And usually the fault belongs to both husband and wife, 


64 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


although either may begin the fray. For “a soft answer 
turnetli away wrath,” and one cannot make a quarrel without 
the contention of the other— 

“The husband’s sullen, dogged, shy, 

He loves command and due restriction: 

• She never slavishly submits, 

Shell have her will or have her fits ; 

He this way tugs ; she that way draws, 

And bqth find fault with equal cause.” 

But the law of mutual forbearance and toleration of things 
not intolerable in their nature, is the law of peace in the com¬ 
munity and of happiness in the household. Love takes wings 
when Mars or Bellona enters or the furies rage. They met¬ 
amorphose that which seemed lovable into all that is hateful. 
Fools mistake the impetuosity of an ungoverned temper for an 
evidence of spirit; and it is evidence of an evil spirit—that of 
a senseless egotistical pride and an arrogant and uncontrolled 
combativeness and destructiveness. It is the soul of malice 
and murder. It is to be trampled upon or chased from the 
Eden of home, as the serpent was exiled that tempted man’s pro¬ 
genitors. Uniformity or conformity of will and a more tender 
and closer union of heart, soul, mind and interests, never 
proceed from any indulgence of contention or a contentious 
spirit. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” 
is the promise of holy writ, and the meek alone can inherit all 
the possibilities of bliss which attend upon the married state. 
The spirit of meekness is never the spirit that rings the jangling 
bells of discord and hate. It is the spirit of a perennial and 
heavenly peace. It must inspire not the wife only, but the 
husband and the wife, in order to ensure the perpetuity of love 
and marriage. Lion-like courage and combativeness are never 
required in the Eden of home, except to repel from it aggressive 
or insidious foes to its peace. Of the meek only will it ever be 
true, that having entered into the holy state of matrimony— 

“From that day forth, in peace and joyous bliss, 

They lived together long without debate, 

Nor private jars, nor spite of enemies— 

Could change the safe assurance of their state.” 

They who allot a reasonable portion of their time to the 
cultivation of this spirit and the full discharge of this varied 


DUTIES INCIDENT TO FAMILY RELATION, ETC. 65 

round of domestic duties, may or may not be able to accumulate 
fortunes as rapidly or as great as they acquire who make them¬ 
selves the most exclusive slaves or idolators of Mammon ; but it 
cannot be questioned that from such competence as they may 
acquire, they will realize a far higher degree of comfort, satis¬ 
faction and true joy, alike in their elegant and peaceful, though 
perhaps humble home; in their narrow circle, it may be of 
mutually improving and cordial friends and intimates; in each 
others enlivening and intertwined affections; and in those bright¬ 
est and most picturesque and animating of the ornaments of 
the home, cheerful, contented, peaceable, reverential, bright 
and beautiful children. 

But there must be'not only system in the home, but also a 
permanent, fixed order, or a place for everything and every¬ 
thing in its place, so that nothing need be lost or stolen without 
being missed ; that no time need be lost or wasted in looking up 
lost or mislaid things ; that the housewife need not be wearied 
out as the runner for everything for everybody, and each can 
get, and may be trained to get whatever he or she may need, and 
all may acquire the habit of place and order and the practice of 
self-help. 

But, like every other thing of value in the world, the 
proper skill, toil and vigilance in all this varied round of 
duties, only can attain their resulting blessings, and only of 
those who regularly and faithfully fulfill this varied line of duties 
is it ever true that 

“There's a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told, 

When two that are bound by one heavenly tie, 

With heart never changing and brow never cold, 

Love on through all ills and love on till they die. 

One hour of a passion so sacred is worth 

Whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss; 

And oh! if there be an Elysium on earth, 

It is this! it is this! 

And in order to the perpetuity of such an Elysium it is 
indispensable, that with the queenship of the wife in a home 
comfortably managed, the husband should never interfere, and 
equally so that in a business already prospering under the com¬ 
petent charge of the husband who is devoting to its manage¬ 
ment ample time and a fair judgment and care, the wife, who 

E 


66 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


has her own realm of special thought and labor, and cannot 
give to his business but a fraction of her time, vigilance or 
consideration, should never seek, uninvited, to intrude, except 
when she knows her own separate property to be therein en¬ 
dangered, when she should always be warned and consulted. 


CHAPTER XI. 

DUTY IN THE EDUCATIVE RELATIONS. 

This duty is two-fold—to educate another, and one’s self. 
No parents or other person ever finish their education. Life, in 
all its spheres, is a training school of the progress towards per¬ 
fection, but never does or can attain it; and so is eternity. 
Mankind can progress towards the infinite perfection only. 
And no parent or teacher can educate his child aright, unless he 
have previously educated or do at the same time educate him¬ 
self or herself. Out of nothing, in this world’s affairs, nothing 
proceeds. But the high trust of educating their child is im¬ 
peratively and specially imposed on the parents; and they must 
discharge it, or as to the child, at home at least, superintend its 
discharge. 

In the era antecedent to the school, the parents, and of 
these chiefly the mother, are the principal educators. This 
home education is constantly proceeding—very little at an 
early age by admonition, precept and tuition, and more largely 
through the processes of spontaneous action, observation, com¬ 
parison, sympathy and imitation. Precept or principle in a 
right education, is of little worth, without its constant practice. 
As in learning arithmetic, the rule and its practice must pro¬ 
ceed together. 

The beginning of education is the instinctive act of the 
child. Its every motion, touch or view, brings a new sensation, 
and its eyes turn curiously upon every new and strange object 
in its new world; and, as soon as it can, it touches, handles, 
feels, tastes, and rattles or strikes them, and observation, per¬ 
ception and memory of objects and their properties are thus 



DUTY IN THE EDUCATIVE RELATIONS. 67 

being exercised and practiced at very early months of life. 
The smile, the sobriety, the frown that flits across or settles 
upon the face of the father or mother, the joy or affection that 
beams from the speaking eye, early informs the child of their 
varying moods; and its earliest and simplest study of human 
najture is begun : but, so also is it a beginning of the sympa¬ 
thetic training of like emotions of its own child nature; for 
each of them are not only recognized and noted, though un¬ 
named, even in the cradle, but is sympathetically or imitatively 
and almost instantaneously reproduced in the heart or reflected 
in the face of the child. Parental ignorance or negligence, 
which leaves it long in the same uncomfortable conditions, or 
in a comfortable one until it becomes over-wearied, evokes the 
cry, first of dissatisfaction and suffering, and then of temper; 
and very early in life, these states may become the ruling 
moods of the child. Insolence, ill-breeding and bad manners 
of either parent are adopted and imitated. Anger and injus¬ 
tice and malice, exhibited, begets a like temper in the infant, 
or perhaps, if exhibited towards it, awakes a cowardly fear. 
Quarrels or conflicts, by word or deed, in its presence between the 
parents or others, are incitements of the low combativeness of 
his nature, immediately fruitful in the relations of the child 
with others. Rude, ruffian words or deeds of associates or elders 
sooner or later reproduce themselves in the manner, deeds and 
words of infancy. Industry, and courteous, kindly words and 
acts, evoke emulation and imitation of like words and deeds ; and 
long before language is so far acquired or understood that tui¬ 
tion by admonition and precept can be given, the great work 
of the education of the child has well or ill begun, and habits 
are so far fixed as to many things, that much exists in its mental 
constitution which it will be very difficult for parent or teacher 
to reform. By the manner, act and expression of the very 
young and unguarded infants of the family, not a little may be 
known of the hidden characteristics and prevailing moods of 
those among whom it has lived, or of their negligence. What 
enduring evil influences of hypocrisy and vice are they exert¬ 
ing on the future lives, tempers, morals and manners of their 
children for evil, who keep their best looks, manners and good 
deeds and guarded courtesies, and one or two clean and tidy re- 


68 


VIA VINCENDI MORALIS. 


ception rooms, like their best clothes, for company, and are 
selfish, porcine, morose, discontented, contentious, resentful, 
swift and constant in wrath, brutal or indolent and frivolous at 
home, given to lounging, sleep, eating and frivolous company 
and conversation, and disorderly and filthy in all the unseen 
chambers of the home. When, in after years, they mourn the 
bad behavior, irregularity, uncleanliness, rudeness, quarrelsome¬ 
ness, spite, lack of duty, indolence and animalism generally of 
the infant grown to manhood, and are disposed to murmur 
over the dispensations of providence; let them look back on 
their own conduct and behavior at and during the era of the 
conception and gestation of the infant and its days and years 
of early infancy, and to their utter neglect, not of right pre¬ 
cepts perhaps, but of its right training and their own right ex¬ 
amples. Every day, hour, moment, from the act of conception 
to the era of maturity, the daily life, tempers, virtues or vices, 
follies or wisdom of parents are moulding the child and its 
destiny for time and for eternity, in ways that no precept can 
counteract. Character is a growth, and is real, not a formal 
mask to be put on in society or .for the world, or a mere hollow 
shell of outward conformity to its manners. Some time or 
other, it becomes fixed and unchangeable, save by the interven¬ 
tion of supernatural power. But who can tell how early or 
late ? 

But in due time, the child has attained the years which fit 
him for tuition and precept. This is due to him daily even be¬ 
fore he enters school and from the time that he can be made to 
know language and its meaning. How many people fail to 
teach their children words and their meaning or precepts of 
any active virtue, or positively virtuous practices 43 and make 
their only tuition “Don’t do so,” or “Don’t do that,” a mere 
command of negation. One good right general rule of life or 
action deeply impressed, is worth a thousand of these negative 
special commands! 

But the time arrives, delayed perhaps by neglect or the 
absence of right care at home, when the child can attend, with 
more or less profit, the day school, the Sunday school and the 
church; and the profit he or she derives from either will de¬ 
pend not a little upon his or her previous as well as his or her 


DUTY IN THE EDUCATIVE RELATIONS. 69 

concurrent deportment, training and diligence at home. For 
all these institutions can be but co-workers, aids and adjuncts 
to the discharge by the busy parents of the duty primarily en¬ 
trusted by God to them. All other teachers but stand in loco 
parentis, as the parent’s agents, to do that which, because of 
his business engrossment, he must entrust to others who make 
that their specialty. The parents are by no means relieved of 
the responsibility. The loss or disgrace will fall or be reflected 
back on them—the blight will be theirs—if their loved ones 
are not educated or ill-educated. If they pursue a high and 
noble career, the parents more than any other teacher will have 
resting upon them the honor and blessing. No one can teach 
his child all he is to be taught, but every mother and father 
can see to it, that the child is attentive, orderly and really dili¬ 
gent, and that the opportunities furnished are not wasted. 

What impression can be expected to be permanently en¬ 
graved upon the heart, mind and conscience of - a hitherto 
neglected child from the best use of the one hour per week 
devoted to the Sunday school, the two hours per week to the 
church, or the five hours per day in the day-school, if the other 
eighteen or nineteen hours of every day not given to sleep or 
eating, are devoted to frivolity, street companionship, low or 
criminal conversation and emulations, or imitation of evil ex¬ 
amples, and the parents from day to day fail to know what the 
child really learns or does, either in the school, church, or out 
of them ? If the parent would reap for the child the highest 
benefit of any institution, one or both of them must know what 
each educational institution is seeking to do and is effecting for 
the child, and that the child is, on its side, making it's ow*n 
proper effort to comprehend, retain and practice what is taught, 
and must be vigilant in every practical way to elucidate, im¬ 
press and enforce the lessons of the various institutions attend¬ 
ed by the child. Even some part of the day in the long vaca¬ 
tions, may be improved in the work of revision. The child’s 
muscles, gradually trained to activity from infancy, at an early 
age are incessantly disposed to activity and scarcely know 
fatigue when their action takes the form of play. No mental 
or moral faculty perhaps has had like training, but they must 
get it before children become equally pleased with the per- 


70 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


formance of their function and equally indefatigable in their 
use. But this training must be gradual. If they rise late, they 
form the habits of the sluggard. If they rise early, the larger 
part of the child’s waking hours is spent at home ; and invin¬ 
cible habits of idleness, lounging or mere muscular activity, or 
folly or excess, may, without constant vigilance of the parent, 
be formed here, and be carried into the schools. 

Various studies exercise different faculties, and this variety 
of study tends, in the earliest stages of studious work, to rest 
one faculty while another is at work, and thus facilitates more 
continuous mental labor, and utter indolence and languor is not 
the proper rest, even in the earlier periods of study. 

If the child plays or dreams over his books, and makes no 
real effort of his own to learn, all educational opportunities are 
vain, and this habit rather than actual incapacity, is the con¬ 
tinuing fault of most of the boys and girls called slow or stupid 
—indolence not incapacity of faculty, and the parental dis¬ 
charge of the duty of giving to them a little occasional atten¬ 
tion and examination every day might soon correct it. The 
gardener, who should plant his seed, and expect to harvest a 
great crop without further and continuous diligence and tillage 
is not more foolish and criminal than the parent is who expects 
the God-given faculties of his child, great or little, without 
thorough vigilance and constant culture, to produce their best 
fruits instead of weeds and thistles. The duty of right and 
general, not partial culture, rests imperiously on the parents, if 
they would rear good, useful, valuable, beloved and honored 
children. And at all ages and times, the parents must always 
strive to be and become the exemplars of that conversation, de¬ 
portment and practice, which they desire the child to pursue 
and make habitual. Schools only supplement, they do not 
supercede parental duty. 

On the other hand the duties of the child, at first limited by 
his feebleness of mind and body, but inhering in his God- 
given constitution, begin as we have seen, in the cradle; and 
become obligatory, iij every sense, as early as he can be made 
to comprehend the ideas of a divine creative power who con¬ 
stitutes all things and gives them the law of their constitution 
and being, and the idea of their own obligation to learn and 


DUTY IN THE EDUCATIVE RELATIONS. 71 

know that law and to practice it—in other words, as soon as he 
can comprehend the idea of duty as it exists by force of the 
divine will in the world in which he is placed, and as inhering 
in the nature and constitution of man, and in his relation to ex¬ 
ternal things and beings and to God. He should be early 
taught, that the fact that he exists at all, implies that he exists 
for somewise and beneficent purpose, and that he has a God- 
ordained mission to fulfill, and that such mission or sphere of 
usefulness, higher or lower, is ordained to be dependent, in a 
great degree, on his own improvement of all the endowments 
God has given him, and not on external beauty of form and 
feature only, but especially of his mental and moral faculties; 
and that therefore it is his duty to use all possible diligence so 
to train and inform his faculties as to fit himself to respond to 
the divine purpose and be ready to seize every opportunity for 
the highest work and sphere of usefulness accorded to him in 
the Providence of God. These true, radical, fundamental 
ideas, parental duty requires parents to strive to indelibly im¬ 
press upon the tablet of the child’s understanding; and these 
ideas, and not the mere selfish instincts of luxury, ostentation, 
avarice, vanity or ambition should be and continue, in the child 
and the man, the main-spring of every aspiration, study or high 
endeavor by thought or deed. 

Then he must be taught that he cannot be fitted to find 
and know, judge, recognize and promptly seize such oppor¬ 
tunity without vigilant, trained, quickened and energetic facul¬ 
ties, improved and invigorated by the discipline of study, and 
thought and diligence; and the consequent duty of seizing and 
making the most of the present educational opportunities which 
he enjoys by a thorough economy and use of all his time „and 
all his powers, and of the duty of cultivating special friendships 
with others animated by like noble aims, who can and will aid 
and encourage each other, and of the concurrent duty of foster¬ 
ing, improving, informing and elevating his moral and re¬ 
ligious instincts by seeking always to know and do right and 
benevolent acts, and the duty to know, adore and obey the great 
creator and law-giver and his laws, in sincerity and in truth. 
He must be taught that every opportunity so made use of will 
improve his mental, moral and spiritual powers, inform his 


72 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


mind, correct his judgment, and energize every high and holy 
element of his soul, give him quick insight into the divine will 
and fit him to see and seize all God-ordained opportunities. lie 
should be taught that every opportunity for self-culture is 
God's call to that high present work, and his voiceless sum¬ 
mons to a most exalted duty, and that it is a wrong to him¬ 
self, to the kind and loving parents who care for him, and under 
God and through more or less self-sacrifice give him the oppor¬ 
tunity ; to the family who may require his aid, to the great 
world in which he is soon to be an actor, and to that God who 
gives him faculty and opportunity to fit himself for the highest 
uses of which he is capable or can make himself capable, and 
that to trifle with time and let it pass unimproved or ill-im¬ 
proved, is the sin of sins, which in due time and for all time 
must bring upon him its proper penalty. These just and noble 
ideas becoming vigorous and constant in the mind of the child 
by constant repetition and actual daily practice upon them, 
there will and can be little trouble in making him or her a con¬ 
stant, diligent, vigorous student, vigilant and careful to use 
every opportunity, and a useful and noble actor in all the long 
drama of life. 

But perhaps he is not yet completely and securely armed 
against the seductions of his own growing appetites and pas¬ 
sions, wayward obstinacy, or evil, vicious companions in the 
school or elsewhere. To further guard against these too seduc¬ 
tive forces, and against his breaking aw r ay from the trammels 
of just authority, each youth and each parent must sedulously 
train the sentiment of gratitude for daily care, kindness and 
support, and that of reverence for the superior learning, wisdom, 
disinterestedness, experience, ability and just authority of 
parents and tutors, and, beyond all, for the immutable law and 
just government of God, which makes his manhood’s destiny 
and perhaps his destiny for eternity, dependent upon his due 
discharge or neglect of juvenile duties. The daily toil of father 
and mother to provide and care for him, and of the patient 
teacher to teach him, and the goodness of God in giving him 
the benefit of such parents, tutors and opportunities, and his 
duty to show.his gratitude practically by availing himself to 
the utmost of them, must be early pointed out to him. 


SOCIAL DUTIES. 


73 

No disparaging or skeptical remark in regard to either 
parent, teacher, minister or teaching of any kind tolerated in 
the community, should be invited, made or permitted by tbe 
parent or any one in the bearing of the pupil, nor from him or 
her, and associations with irreverent, conceited, wayward asso¬ 
ciates ought to be discouraged. He must be, by precept and 
example, in word and act, trained to reverence superiors and 
obey authority and rules. And his budding affections should 
be made to cling to the home and its loving circle, the school 
and its teachers and select associates, the church and its minis¬ 
ter, and members or some at least of its best people. Children 
must love, and will have friends, and these should be sought 
out for them, and . their affections directed to worthy objects, 
and they should be encouraged to seek with moderation the 
society of superiors, the sensible and the good, who love children 
and delight to do them good. 

And so both parents and children, teachers and pupils, are 
in duty bound through life to seek to improve themselves and 
each other, their affections, reverence for rightful authority 
and law human and divine, and diligent and careful discharge 
of every duty, and to subordinate to this every other ambition 
and desire of pleasure—and continuously to elevate each other 
to fitness, each for their several functions, office or business, 
and for higher and more exalted capabilities and success in it 
or in a higher one. 


CHAPTER XII. 

SOCIAL DUTIES. 

But man is not a mere working machine. He is not 
formed alone for the busy and toilsome avocations of life, nor 
the society and seclusion of the home. He is gregarious in his 
nature, and disposed to form attachments and be friendly and 
seek friends. His ideas are brightened, corrected and brought 
out into distinctness by interchange, comparison, expression and 
attrition in society. He needs to laugh occasionally, as well as 



74 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


to think and toil, and has a faculty which enables him to dis¬ 
cover and express witty, ludicrous or humorous ideas and ob¬ 
jects—a faculty peculiarly fitting him for social and domestic 
enjoyment of mirth and to be its cause. He naturally seeks 
society and enjoys it, and, if he does not have it in moderation 
and among well-selected companions, male and female, of re¬ 
spectability, virtue and proper standing, he will be apt sooner 
or later to fall into that which congregates in the lowest haunts 
of indolence, vice, sin and intemperance. Good society requires 
everywhere the co-association and mutually restraining influence 
of the virtuous male and female. Without it, there may be 
meetings and concourse, but there can be no really good 
society. 

“The world was sad—the garden was a wild— 

And man, a hermit sighed, till woman smiled.” 

“Stag parties” and club-houses cannot be deemed a sign of 
virtuous living, nor as indications of social improvement, but 
are signs of half-isolation and retrogression socially, and of a 
tendency to greater depravity, for they lack the elevating, re¬ 
fining, chastening presence and influence of good, gentle and 
true women. 

All may not, in the very nature of things, enter at once 
into the highest grades of society, and, in the nature of it, there 
are, have been, and will be such grades. Society naturally falls 
into grades, and rises by gradation. Here, as elsewhere, nature 
gives the law, and men and women take position accordingly. 
Like seeks like, and opposites and incompatibles repel each 
other, yet not forbidding that variety of actively agreeable or 
informing qualities, endowments and capabilities, which com¬ 
bine everywhere to instruct, amuse, entertain and heighten 
cheerfulness and enjoyment. Even in the same social circle, 
its habitues occupy different positions according to their fitness, 
and are more or less courted and prized. Man and woman 
alike take rank here, not for other merits or demerits, but for 
their fitness for the circle in which they move, and as social be¬ 
ings, and sometimes only by their gilding. In incompatible 
associations, the people of highest capability for the best circle, 
stand isolated. The lettered and the illiterate, the cultured and 


SOCIAL DUTIES. 


75 


the ignorant, the devotee of the beautiful and the grand and 
the coarse men without taste for either; the polite and the rude 
and ruffianly, the luxurious and the penurious and miserly, the 
ostentatiously rich, luxurious and fashionable, and the plain, 
frugal poor, the saint and the impure and criminal animal be¬ 
ing, cannot possibly consort together without a sense of mutual 
repugnance and disgust. Nothing 'can draw them, even tem¬ 
porarily together, except the fugitive coalescing power of some 
common appetite, instinct, passion, illusion or quest that seeks 
selfish or illicit ends, or some common high moral purpose. 
These and like opposites can no more commingle permanently 
and pleasantly than oil and water. 

And still, in regard to social affairs, there is one common 
duty for all, and that is to fit themselves for, and seek, the very 
best society within their reach and fitness and the compass of 
their means; and that, in it, every member of it, do his best to 
enlighten, inform, improve, amuse and entertain each and all its 
members to the best of his or her ability ; to study and invaria¬ 
bly practice the art of pleasing, and never to repel a well-in¬ 
tended, if perhaps a mistaken effort of another to do either; 
nor exhibit displeasure for accidental or unintentional injuries. 
A forgiving or tolerant temper, cheerfulness, hopefulness, cour¬ 
tesy, genuine kindness, a sincere manifestation of interest in 
the welfare, progress and elevation and happiness of others, and 
occasional hospitality according to one’s means, are the essential 
and constant duties of every one in society towards all its mem¬ 
bers. Where these prevail, none can fail in any society to re¬ 
turn thence to their own secluded homes, charmed, refreshed, 
and re-invigorated for the discharge of the duties of the daily 
routine of toil. Were there more of such social meetings in 
every grade of society, instead of perhaps an annual concourse 
at one costly feast of stiff, constrained, formal strangers, especially 
among the young or unmarried of both sexes in their decent 
homes, the haunts of intemperance, vice and sin, the street, the 
highway and the dubious public resorts of pleasure, which too 
often afford both temptation to and opportunity for vice, would 
soon lose much of their attraction or cease to attract. Innocent, 
agreeable and elevating associations in pleasant virtuous homes, 
the most prevailing enemies of dissipations and temptations 


76 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 




elsewhere, need to be provided, and made as beautiful and agree¬ 
able and attractive as the particular social circle can make them, 
for the young especially; and, among the most pleasant and 
attractive and protective reminiscences of after life are the 
bright and hallowing memories which cluster around such 
homes, and their charming little soirees. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

DUTIES OF CHILDREN, DEPENDENTS, INFERIORS OR EMPLOYEES. 

But children also have special duties. And these may be 
briefly stated in two precepts. “ Honor thy father and thy 
mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord, 
thy God, giveth thee,” and that other precept, “Revere the per¬ 
son, precepts and instructions of the aged and of the wise, who 
teach from experience or study, and render to the one willing 
obedience and seek the counsel and instruction of the other, 
especially of such as are known to excel in any department of 
skill or sagacity.” 

God might have created each natural object in the fullness 
of its maturity. He might have brought into being successive 
generations of mankind endowed with the fullness and maturity 
of their faculties from the beginning; and the ever-present 
might have inspired those faculties at once with the fullness of 
all knowledge and science. But such most wisely is not the 
order of nature and providence. Everything, like man himself, 
grows and is cultured into maturity or perfection, each in its 
kind. Without time, and growth in time, nothing matures, 
temporal or spiritual. Every being is endowed with function 
and faculty material, organic, or spiritual, or mental, more simple 
or more complex and divine ; and each creature developes after 
his kind, and the law of its own corporal, mental or spiritual 
organization. The child, like all other created things, is bound 
within the law of its corporal, mental and spiritual organization, 
and is endowed with function and faculty only, and a capacity 



DUTIES OF CHILDREN, DEPENDENTS, ETC. 77 

of normal development, but not with maturity, knowledge and 
wisdom. These last must be assimilated by the God-given 
faculty. The intractable and indocile, through a single life, can 
learn by their own experience only a little of that, which others 
learn from those who have had a life’s experience, and from 
them who by the study of a life-time have learned the arts, 
wisdom and experiences of generations of men throughout the 
procession of the centuries. And in addition to these living 
teachers and sages, books, which contain this recorded experi¬ 
ence, wisdom and science and art, are now the great teachers of 
mankind. And hence the indocile may remain practically an 
ignorant savage in the midst of surrounding civilization until 
he drops into the grave, while the docile only can, in a few 
brief years, bring himself up to a level with the arts, wisdom 
and civilization which are the growth of centuries of learning, 
culture and discovery. And up to this high level it is the duty 
of every child of our era to strive. He is wisely born to toil 
upward to this height and the docile only can attain it. Hence 
docility and reverence for superiors, elders and parents is the 
first and most fundamental virtue of children. 

The child is wisely born dependent upon the experienced 
and the mature, not one of whom, unless he is an idiot or luna¬ 
tic, is incapable of teaching him some useful lesson at least of 
common life and practice, which he could otherwise learn only 
at the cost of personal loss, pain or penalty. For, ever 
“To willful men, 

The injuries that they themselves procure, 

Must he their school-masters.” 

The intractable, self-sufficient and rash and self-willed, so 
suffer from many accidents and retaliations and betrayals, by 
which the docile are never afflicted. Yet parental love alone 
assures, perhaps not always the wisest counsel, but certainly the 
wisest and most disinterested precepts, of which the particular 
parents are capable. For they, who, unselfishly devote their 
toil, earnings and life, by day or night, to the maintenance, 
training and education of and care and attendance upon their 
children, can surely be depended upon for the best and most 
disinterested counsel, and they alone deserve an obedience, trust, 
confidence, respect and honor due to no other human being. 


78 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


But the respect or honor, which vents itself in a luxurious sen¬ 
timent or fine sentimental words or respectful manners merely, 
and not in acts of obedience and docility and practice of paren¬ 
tal maxims, rules and instructions, is but a vain delusion, a 
mockery and a snare. 

And hence orphanage and youth, which invite the greedy 
and vicious to their prey, ever awaken only the active sympa¬ 
thy, patronage and protection of the wise and good. But, even 
these become weary of aiding and counseling in vain ; and, 
sooner and more easily than the parent, abandon the willful, the 
conceited and indocile to their own waywardness. To all, who 
surrender themselves to the wayward indulgence or pursuit of 
the objects of instinct and appetite in their own foolish way, 
the language of prophetic or divine condemnation applies. 
“Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone.” Yerily docil¬ 
ity hath its rewards; nature and God’s commandments are in 
perfect agreement here, as in all the realms of nature and 
providence. 

But these lessons of parents and of the wise are to be 
learned, not by rote only, and once practiced then to be for¬ 
gotten, but must be incorporated, by memory and understand¬ 
ing and reasoning faculty, into our very mental constitution, 
and must be held ever ready to he practiced daily, or as often as 
the occasion arises, to put them in practice. “My son, keep thy 
father’s commandment and forsake not the law of thy mother. 
Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about 
thy neck. When thou goest it shall lead thee. When thou 
sleepest it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest it shall 
talk with thee.” Unless parental and other instruction become 
thus a charm or amulet to ward off evil daily, all other knowl¬ 
edge of their lessons is vain ! 

Except this right practice, nothing is more lovely in youth 
and childhood, than that reverential demeanor towards parents 
and the aged, which is the outward manifestation of this inner 
sentiment of honor and respect. And the life-long respect and 
gratitude of children is especially due to the parents who have 
cared for them in the helpless years of infancy, provided for 
them during their progress to maturity, and educated and 
trained them to the best of their ability, and to whose training 


DUTIES OF CHILDREN, DEPENDENTS, ETC. 79 

and culture they owe whatsoever of knowledge, wisdom and 
practical ability they possess. And the mere sentiment of 
gratitude is here too of little worth, and is but a selfish luxury 
of mere sentimentality, except it become operative in action, 
and prompt a return in kind in advancing the comfort, happi¬ 
ness, ease and substantial welfare of the parents’ declining 
years, and also a return for all benefactions received from others. 
And never may a son or daughter hope for the divine blessing 
here or hereafter, who causes any parent to feel the sting of 
ingratitude or to say “Your old kind father whose frank heart 
gave you all—oh, that way madness lies; let me shun that.” 
Ordinary parents never had kingdoms to give, like Lear, to 
thankless children ; but the most indigent of fathers and mothers 
give to their children their all, be it but the labors of a life¬ 
time and the fruits of its garnered wisdom and experience. 
And these parents are no less worthy of gratitude, succor, kind¬ 
ness and reverence, than are they who, without any self-denial, 
give fortunes or kingdoms. Let it cease to be true of children 
or parents, high or low, that 

“Fathers that wear rags 
Do make their children blind, 

But fathers that hear bags 
Shall see their children kind.” 

The duty and relation of servants of every grade is akin to 
that of infants, however wise or skilled they may deem them¬ 
selves. The' very fact, that they work for wages, instead of 
working on their own account, is an admission of their inability 
to make their own living by independent self-ruled work, by 
reason of their lacking either calculation, management, econ¬ 
omy that accumulates capital, self-reliance or the confidence of 
others in their skill or capacity. The employer has and risks all 
these ; and, it becomes his right to control, and the duty of those 
who serve, cheerfully to obey. He who takes no risks of a busi¬ 
ness, must of right obey him who assumes all risks. And the em¬ 
ployer must pay even him his wages, which he cannot do from an 
unsuccessful business or from unprofitable work, without ruin to 
himself and a total wreck of his business and a cessation of all 
employment. The servant has interest enough in the master’s 
business to inform and suggest modestly for its advancement, 


80 


VIA MOfiALIS VINCENDI. 


but to dictate in nothing. And it is also the duty and interest 
of the employer to listen to respectful suggestion ; and of the 
employee, not to seek exorbitant wages beyond the ability of 
the employer to pay, but to take care to earn by faithful and 
effective service his current compensation, or a higher one. 
The interests of the two, if one looks to steady employment or 
the other to a safe business with good service in it, is the same. 
Both seek at least and must make an economical living and 
some permanent profit or accretion of capital; or, if they are 
wise, if they fail to achieve so much, must and will, sooner or 
later, seek or be forced to seek, o filer business or employment, 
as means of subsistence and accumulation. And so inequitable 
greed on the part of employer or employed leads to utter in¬ 
stability and uncertainty of business and of employment. The 
wise master is always liberal in his compensations according to 
his ability, knowing that thereby he commands permanently 
the best and most efficient service, and the wise employee ever 
strives to render his most effective service and with his utmost 
fidelity, knowing that so alone can he secure permanence of 
■employment at the best wages. 


CHAPTER XIY. 

BUSINESS DUTIES. 

God’s earth has no real place for idlers. Nothing that has 
life, can be inert. Inorganic matter only is relatively inactive. 
Life is action, and action is the evidence of life. God gives no 
choice to man between idleness and action, except at the cost of 
vice or ennui to the rich ; or want, starvation and death to the 
poor. He compels every man and woman, by the necessities 
of his physical and psychical organization, by the unchanging . 
decrees of His providence, by the urgency of his own neces¬ 
sary wants and by the cravings of their wisely implanted mani¬ 
fold desires and ambitions, to acquire, perfect himself in and 
diligently and skillfully to practice some line of business. With 
so many motives to this course, wisely inherent in his nature, 



BUSINESS DUTIES. 


81 


in addition to the dictates of duty, it is only surprising that so 
many remain comparative idlers or rude and unskilled toilers - 
through life, and indulge vague, vain dreams of an unnatural 
ease and pleasure in some state of indolent rest, freed from real 
living energetic effort and cares. Is there any pleasure without 
some activity of soul or body ? The corpse is at rest; but is it 
capable of any pleasure? The Nirvana of Buddha and the 
Buddhist is death, not life ! 

In business, as elsewhere, nature indicates to each man and 
woman his or her sphere, modified perhaps by circumstance, 
opportunity and use or misuse of opportunity. And the youth 
disposed to traffic ought to engage in merchandise ; the quick, 
rapid and retentive student, predisposed to excellence in some 
special line of scientific or art study, to the science, art or pro¬ 
fession so indicated to him by nature; they who naturally in¬ 
cline to the study of the laws of right, justice and duty, should 
become students and practitioners of law; they, who, in addition 
to moral investigation, are disposed to faith in the supernatural 
and worship of the wonderful, ought to become ministers ; and 
they who manifest no predisposition, genius or special aptitude 
or specific ambition, ought to seek any honest, honorable and 
useful avocation. And the special and most important duty of 
observing, knowing and guiding children, in this respect, de¬ 
volves upon the parent wholly, or upon those who have under¬ 
taken to assume the parents’ place. They can cultivate or per¬ 
vert and thwart, but they cannot create genius or a special 
talent for special pursuits. A child, wrongly placed in business, 
is never contented and seldom successful. Man may select his 
avocation ; but it is his duty to select it, if possible, in conformity 
to his real tastes, capabilities, aptitude and opportunities of ade¬ 
quate training; and, as to the avocations, which require great 
learning, according to his will to study. All cannot follow, and 
are not designed to follow one avocation, nor any avocation 
upon the mere prompting of caprice or aspiration. Goa* has 
an infinite variety of work to be done in the world, and he de¬ 
signs to put into each, fit actors to do it—those who are by 
nature, training or culture best adapted to and can more easily 
and profitably fit themselves for, and do prepare themselves 
each for his proper line of work. All useful work—all the 

F 


82 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


work necessary to be done in tlie world, is honorable, and, in 

electing his life work, man should consider his fitness and com- 
© * 

petency only, and remember that 

“Honor and shame from no condition rise; 

Act well your part—there all the honor lies !” 

And hence, although a vain aristocracy may spurn the 
newly rich who has amassed a fortune in the same way as their 
own ancestor, or even in more honest ways, success in any line of 
business commands respect and position. A prosperous trades¬ 
man or agriculturist, or mechanic, has power, while the unsuc¬ 
cessful professional man may have none, and may even fall into 
dependence. 

Whatever line of work one may select, its littleness or 
greatness, success or failure, will depend upon his own natural 
or acquired taste for it, his own trained capacity for physical 
endurance and mental fortitude, and wise continuous energetic 
mental effort, and his ability to select well and employ efficiently 
and profitably the labor, intelligence, learning and trained skill 
and capacity of others. The first class can succeed only in 
moderate enterprises—the latter only are fit to rule and conduct 
the great; and each have a grander or narrower sphere of busi¬ 
ness duty and success accordingly, and if they undertake aught, 
for which they are unfitted, they fail and are spewed out of it 
in disgrace. 

Whatever a man’s pursuit, he must devote to it time, mind, 
body, study, vigor, if he would excel or even succeed. This is 
his primary business duty, in a word his business must be to 
him a science or an art, beloved and followed as the lover pur¬ 
sues the beloved. Without skill in or knowledge of, or capacity 
for and diligence in, some useful line of business, and its effec¬ 
tive constant practice, or an inherited fortune, man or woman 
can acquire nothing, and can deserve no more, and can purchase 
no gratification of desire or elegant taste, except through self¬ 
debasement or dishonor. Without the discharge of this duty 
with properly trained and acquired skill, he can be but a bur¬ 
den upon others, or constantly tempted by penury and appetite 
to crime—fit, not to play a man’s part in the great world of light 
and life, beauty and incessant activity, but a part only in the 


BUSINESS DUTIES. 


83 


pauper's or convict’s cell or in the continuous life-long servitude 
to a task-master. While the higher walks of business require 
wide knowledge and various skill, there is none so humble that 
does not demand a degree of it; and, into the latter they must 
fall, who seek ever that which is easy. 

But life is short for great achievement in any enterprise, 
great or little. Hence arises a duty, incumbent alike on the 
parent and on the child and on the controllers of our public 
schools, to finish the preliminary education of the child as early 
and rapidly as it can be well finished—the parents regulating 
its extent according to their own means and family needs. And 
it should be constantly impressed upon the mind of the child, 
that he has only brief opportunity, and must diligently and en¬ 
ergetically avail himself of it with all his power before it goes 
from him or her, perhaps forever. And whenever this branch 
of preliminary education ends, it becomes the duty of the parent 
to enter each child under a suitable master, not simply to earn 
his board, but upon the study and practice of some one of the 
many useful avocations of life, according to the ascertained 
taste, intellectual activity and power, capabilities and educa¬ 
tional fitness of the candidate for business honors and emolu¬ 
ments. And now, for many or few years of his life, according 
to his diligence, vigilance, inquisitiveness to learn and reten¬ 
tiveness of memory, and economies in saving up his earnings as 
capital, he has but entered into the real business school, which 
is to fit him, if he ever is fitted, to do for himself, otherwise 
than as the servant or hireling he now is. And the duty of 
selection of an honest, skillful, enterprising, thorough-going, sys¬ 
tematic, capable master, is one of great responsibility, devolved 
especially on the parent, and not onfe that can be properly dis¬ 
charged by him without thought, time and pains-taking. * 

After all this has been duly transacted, the great and con¬ 
stant duty of his life on earth devolves upon the youth—that of 
the constant and exhaustive study of the art, business or pro¬ 
fession, in its every department, by which he is to live and to 
support others, and that practice of self-control, or control of 
appetite and vanity which saves capital, and of practicing his 
art with the utmost skill, diligence, celerity and excellence that 
he can acquire in its execution. Close attention to order, 


84 


VIA YINOENDI MORALIS. 


times, system, details, fabrics, materials, and a wide variety *of 
new knowledge must be here acquired, which no one ever per¬ 
fectly acquires without close, constant observation, reflection, 
study and effort. 

The requisite thorough knowledge and skilled practice being 
acquired, and a little needed capital saved from his earnings 
during his service, he is fitted to conduct such business in his 
line as one man with small capital can conduct alone, as an ex¬ 
pert ; or, by combination with other experts having or contrib¬ 
uting a larger capital, he may undertake a larger business. 
Business is a growth, and men must grow gradually into it; 
and, when he has also acquired such knowledge of people and 
their means, occupations, character and integrity, and such 
judgment as to workers in his line and their capacity for daily 
skilled work, and has capacity to figure expenditures, cost and 
profit and loss in his trade or business, so as to deal alike with 
his customers and workmen and the men from whom he buys, 
diligently, justly, well and profitably, then he is fitted to over¬ 
see men, and to hire them and conduct a larger business. And 
with a growing experience as manager and dealer, and a steady 
practice of kindness, courtesy, affability, integrity, calculation 
and resolution, he becomes fitted to enter upon and manage in¬ 
creasingly great enterprises in his line of business only, success¬ 
fully on his own account. What youth who desires to excel, 
can afford to be fickle and ever changing from one business to 
another ? And what is he worth to himself or the community, 
comparatively, who becomes the handy man of the neighbor¬ 
hood—a jack of all trades, but proficient and excelling in none ? 

And now, as the conductor of great enterprises, new 
duties devolve upon him, or at least the old duties are to be 
more intensely practiced in the grander sphere—those of great 
caution, exact calculation and most perfect economies in every 
department of such enterprises, before he embarks upon them 
and while engaged in their advancement. Little losses or gains 
count here heavily, and make or mar fortunes. As the child 
must creep before he walks, and walk before he runs, so men, 
however greatly capable by nature for great enterprises, must 
be trained by study and experience—grow into them gradually, 
and at first slowly into adequate means for them, or by combina- 


BUSINESS DUTIES. 


85 


tion secure sufficient means from others. Hash undertakings, 
unless aided, protected and sustained at their critical moments 
by others, lead only to failures, wronging many, and are crim¬ 
inal. And the man new to business on his own account, or 
entering upon a new or old business in a new locality among 
unknown people, must, like the child, feel his way to its en¬ 
largement, even when he has abundant means, must study to 
know all with whom he deals, have eye and ear on vigilant 
watch to know all that affects them or it, and take care that he 
do not wreck himself, or those who trust him or lend him a 
helping hand, nor bring loss upon his employees. He must 
ordinarily, if he would move securely, be content to grow as the 
tree grows—adding annually a new ring or accretion to the 
gradually enlarging business. The fortune.of A. T. Stewart, 
the greatest ever accumulated in one lifetime by one man in 
this country, grew in this way. The fortune of the Yander- 
bilts is the increment of the lives of two busy and enterprising 
generations. And that of the Astors are now being wrought 
out by the fourth generation. And yet little wit and inexperi¬ 
ence dream of achieving, with impatient haste and rude inex¬ 
pertness, astonishing successes; but such is not nature’s wise 
plan or ordinary law, and naught but conceit and inexperience 
can prompt the dream. 

Immediately on assuming to conduct a business of his own, 
new duties devolve on the proprietor, who by the very act, as¬ 
sumes business duties to which even family duties must, when 
necessary, be subordinated—a duty to the creditor, who sells 
to him in trust as to his capacity, integrity and will to pay 
promptly—a duty to the customer, who deals with him right¬ 
fully expecting good faith, truthfulness, good goods and fair 
prices—and a duty to his assistants and employees who must 
earn and get fair wages without loss or deduction from their 
fair earnings . 42 Every new relation which man assumes, brings 
with it to him new duties, and every accession to wealth widens 
the circle of his duties. The vulgar smartness, which is incon¬ 
sistent with fidelity to either the vendor, the buyer, the en¬ 
dorser or the creditor, is fraud. The legal maxim caveat em])- 
tor , may or may not be a sound policy of the law, but it is not 
a principle of good faith or sound morals in the relations of 


86 


VIA MOEALIS VINCENDI. 


business, nor conducive to trust or a continued success in busi¬ 
ness. It leads to but one of the modes of fraud on the part of 
the vendor—fraud bj silence or concealment of some element 
of depreciation of value known to the vendor, but not to the 
vendee. People generally are not and cannot be experts in 
everything they buy, so as to see and know even visible defects. 
Successive failures are proof only of want of capacity, calcula¬ 
tion, skill, or of fraud or want of acceptability of the man of 
business to his patrons or the public; or of want of diligence 
and energy and good judgment in the prosecution of the 
business. 

His duty is, not only to sentimentally desire to be honest, 
but he must so calculate his expenditures, volume of trade, 
gross income and profits or net income, as to be able to meet 
promptly all his business obligations, and to make sure of living 
honestly and within his means . 43 Thus only can he maintain 
his integrity, self-respect and the real respect of others, or de¬ 
serve it. Excessive or mistaken servitude to appetites, in¬ 
stincts, ostentations, ambitions, shams, not actual intentional 
dishonesty, often or generally lead to these failures. When 
over-sanguine and baseless hopes are not the cause, it is a repe¬ 
tition of the old fable of the frog endeavoring to swell him¬ 
self to the size of the ox and bursting in the effort. But his 
calculation must not make him miserly, for no man in business, 
who expects the support of the public, can or ought to so live 
as to be unable to contribute something to the support of public 
institutions or objects. 

He must not only be. just himself and courteous, but he 
must see to it that, in his business affairs, his clerks and assist¬ 
ants deal courteously and honorably with all who come into 
business association with him, whether they be of good or ill- 
repute. 

He has been himself a subordinate in the same business; 
and, if he have sense enough to conduct a business, he ought to 
know the character and value of the service which it requires, 
and ought to understand better than one inexperienced in it as 
an employee, the duties he owes to his employees, among which 
certainly are these three: First, the allowance and prompt 
payment of a just compensation according to the real value of 


THE MORALS OF TIMELINESS. 


87 


the service, and to a competent, faithful man more than suffi¬ 
cient to lift him and his above temptation and to enable him 
and them to make that respectable appearance that every one 
ought to maintain ; secondly, ever to treat every employee with 
that uniform courtesy and consideration which is due from one 
man to another in whatever relations they may be placed, and 
which are especially agreeable to those who are in inferior posi¬ 
tions when it is manifested towards them by superiors, and 
lastly, they should ever, in their own persons, set before them 
an example of every good trait of character which they desire 
them to possess and practice, and make every effort to improve 
their business capabilities and habits, their morals and religion, 
for even the business relation of employer and employed is for 
both parties, but especially for the inexperienced employee, one 
of the schools of God. Even every business relation, that 
opens up to us new avenues to the promotion of our own in¬ 
terests, conducts us also to new lines of duties, or to new prac¬ 
tice and spheres of practice of the common duties of life* And 
ignorant, indolent or heedless disregard of them is always in¬ 
consistent, not only with the interest and welfare of our busi¬ 
ness associates, but also with our own. 


CHAPTER XV. 

THE MORALS OF TIMELINESS. 

“There is a time for everything under the sun” is the pro¬ 
verb of the wise. God makes that time, and this is a God-in¬ 
spired maxim and a divinely ordained law, disregard of which 
brings its own penal sequences of unreadiness, or disappoint¬ 
ment and loss, however diligently we may tardily toil: and the 
employer, who discharges his employee for tardiness, regardless 
of excuses, but acts upon his knowledge of the needs of his own 
business. 

It is never a matter of indifference in morals or in busi¬ 
ness, when a man shall arise to labor or go to his rest; when he 
shall begin or complete a work; when he shall make or fulfill 



88 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


an engagement; when he shall eat or drink, or refrain from 
eating or drinking; when or how long he shall toil or when or 
how often he shall play or amuse himself; or, in other words, 
whether he shall ordinarily live, a regular and well-regulated 
life, or an irregular or disorderly one. Circumstances and con¬ 
ditions beyond his own will, and a law of necessity born of 
them and arising out of the habits of others and of our relation 
to them, and enforced by a higher power, fix certain laws of 
health and of business and their laws of time and order, which 
man is free to study and discern or to neglect and not discern 
or to disregard, only to his own injury and that of others. But 
he has no more right to injure himself than he has to injure 
another. 

In the home and in business, time, system, regularity and 
rules are indispensable to the attainment of.the best results 
which either sex, or families or individuals, are capable of at¬ 
taining, and that regularity and system, which is born of wise 
rules, js conducive, not only to health and prosperity, but as 
physiologists have demonstrated, is indispensable to the happi¬ 
ness and prolongation of life. And punctuality, timeliness and 
order are the law of God as well in the domestic and in busi¬ 
ness circles, as in the material universe. 

Ho intelligent being, who has the least acquaintance with 
the regularity and punctuality as to times, which pervade all 
nature, can find any reason why he or she alone should be 
exempt from nature’s else all-pervading law of regularity. The 
sun rises and sets year by year, the seasons come and go, the 
celestial orbs move in their orbits and on their axes, the tree 
and herb put forth their foliage and mature into the rest of 
winter, and thrive, fructify and perish, with such regularity as 
to time that successive generations of men in every clime of 
earth have known and will know their times, seasons and laws 
of movement, luxuriance, dwindling or decline . 47 Man him¬ 
self, in the automatic or involuntary movements of his organs, 
is so regular that health or disease is indicated by regularity or 
excess in them. Hor can the courses, attainments or abilities 
of men be foreknown or trusted, except through reliance on a 
like regularity in their affairs and voluntary acts. Hot profes¬ 
sion, right feeling, skill and integrity of purpose alone, but a 


THE MORALS OF TIMELINESS. 


89 


well-ordered and regular life and employment only, can be re¬ 
lied on as bases of mutual confidence and trust. For lie or 
she, who is irregular and unregulated in habits and employ¬ 
ment, must be alike irregular in his attainments, vigor and suc¬ 
cesses or failures. 

In whatever sphere of work a man or woman labors, a cer¬ 
tain definite amount of time is requisite that he or she may 
complete the necessary labors of the day, or attain by that work 
the mere necessaries of life. More is required, if ornamentation 
or accumulation be attempted, or if he or she would command 
the luxuries or superfluities, elegancies or pomps of life, or 
acquire, or keep learning or skill, or houses or lands. Without 
a constant devotion of such regulated amounts of time daily to 
business and thought, learning and attainment of practical 
skill, all fall into arrears and confusion, and none can live hon¬ 
estly and honorably. But that definite amount of time, vary¬ 
ing somewhat with occupation and aim, cannot be devoted to 
business, study or the acquisition of theoretic or practical skill, 
without regularity, system and order, as well in the home 
as elsewhere, and many a man can trace his wreck back to lack 
of order, time and method in his home or in his business, or in 
both, and, if he does not, others, who know his habits, can, and 
no one can estimate how many of those who trust him and are 
wrecked, owe their ruin to his want of punctuality and that of 
others like him. Although the laws do not recognize unpunc¬ 
tuality and irregularity as a crime, it is more than doubtful 
whether more honest and kind people have not been ruined 
through their reluctance or inability seasonably to enforce or 
exact their own dues and by misplaced trust in men of sup¬ 
posed good principles, but irregular and unsteady habits, than 
by robbers and defrauders, who, in general, are never trusted 
except when unknown. And this inability to promptly pay 
debts or discharge obligations, arises more often from the 
debtor’s own or another’s irregularities resulting in loss of op¬ 
portunities known or unknown, than from any want of the 
opportunity itself. And none who are irregular in business, 
from whatever cause, can tell what or how many opportunities 
they then lose or may lose. 

The farmer, who rises late or lingers about his house, or 


90 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


chores, oi‘ idles away the winter and conies out of it unprepared 
for his spring’s work, then finds time too short to get in a crop 
equal to his entire needs, or to get it in in season, or to hoe and 
cultivate it thoroughly and often enough to make it a success, 
or performs all his operations so late that the regularly recur¬ 
ring droughts of summer dwarf, or the frosts of autumn ruin it, 
or neglects to provide soiling or other material to prevent the 
drying up of his milch kine during the summer’s drought, or 
cannot find time or means to manure or otherwise fertilize the 
land which his crops and cattle exhaust, and finds himself un¬ 
able to meet his obligations, seldom charges himself with im¬ 
morality, but excuses himself by the drought or frost that comes 
in its usual appointed time annually, or by the poverty of his 
land, which he annually abuses and exhausts. The importer or 
wholesale merchant, who neglects to keep himself informed of 
the market prices, or the condition of crops or products, or of 
coming changes, and buys unwisely, or fails to recognize the 
importance to his customers of prompt deliveries by speedy 
routes, or is careless of the times and seasons when his custom¬ 
ers go their rounds, or frequently fails to have leading articles 
in his line of business, or is careless in giving credit or fixing 
terms of credit, finds his trade decline or his capital consumed, 
or his credit shaken, and becomes forced to fail and compromise 
with his creditors ; but, never recognizes that he has been guilty 
of immorality. The retailer, who opens late and closes early, 
well knowing that many of his customers must trade early or 
late or not at all, and pays little heed to the times of need or 
convenience of his customers, or his own or their times of pay¬ 
ment, and fails to acquire or hold trade enough or to collect 
money enough to meet his obligations, seldom deems himself 
in fault. The professional man who devotes too much or too 
little time to abstract study, or yields too much to politics or 
self-indulgence,, amusement or vanities, or undertakes more 
business than his habits, capacities or skill can timely perfect 
and rightly perform, and finds business deserting him, deems 
himself not immoral, but the victim of inauspicious circum¬ 
stances ; and the lawyer perhaps ruins clients by his delays, 
even when he is successful. And the bank director, trustee, 
public board or other man of business, who does not, at fre- 


THE MORALS OF TIMELINESS. 


91 


quent and regular times, thoroughly examine his books and cash 
and every item of debt and credit, and suddenly finds himself 
or his cestui qui trust robbed of thousands by the faithless¬ 
ness or fraud of a trusted employee, deems no one guilty of an 
immorality, but the robber, to whom he alone furnished both 
temptation and opportunity beyond his employee’s powers of 
resistance. 

But God, by his laws and varying circumstances, fixes not 
only times and seasons for inanimate things, but for the pre¬ 
visions, vigilance and acts of the animate also, and for man’s 
multiform operations, special as to each business and general as 
to many or all. To study, know and regard them is moral. 
To ignore and disregard them is immoral. He who is docile 
and serves for a sufficient period, either learns the times of his 
business or habitually practices them ; and, although not recog¬ 
nizing them as any part of morals, conforms to them, perhaps 
as laws of business. In either case he reaps their appropriate 
rewards which the self-sufficient cannot do. This moral law re¬ 
quires, that every business of the home or beyond it be done in 
its proper time, and that one undertake no more business than 
he can well and reasonably perform in person or by supervision 
of hired helpers. It permits no postponement of aught that 
can or ought to be done now, to any future time—the future 
ever bringing its own work. 

He, who does work that can be done only by day, must 
employ, if need be, the whole day, while the professional man 
or man of science, liable to constant interruptions by day, if he 
would study and keep up with or make the new developments 
in his profession, must use the night, as perhaps others may 
profitably use some part of it. If the farmer would live hon¬ 
estly and prosperously, he must find regular time to feed the 
land he is exhausting, must use, not the spring, summer and 
fall only, but the winter also to study out, plan, prepare for, 
and further his work; he must either in person or by hirelings 
in fall and spring plough and drag, and sow and plant, and cul¬ 
tivate, and in summer and fall, harvest his crops, not when he 
choses or thinks he can ; but in the God-appointed time, which 
he must study, learn and conform to. And so every man, in 
every line of business, if he would deserve or achieve success, 


92 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


must equally well know and act, and pay at and within, the 
times his business requires, if he would avoid Joss, or ensure 
gain. Either ignorance or neglect here is a violation of his 
duty to himself. 

But promptitude and punctuality is indispensable, not only 
to his own interest and his family’s welfare, hut to the interest 
of all those who do business with him, and others also. A de¬ 
lay in meeting an appointment may lose to himself, or to an¬ 
other who is detained by him, some opportunity of great value 
that may never return. A delay in meeting a payment, if it 
does not arrest an enterprise or ruin the creditor, may cause 
him great trouble, anxiety or loss to fill the deficiency, or it 
must cause a line of far-extending disappointments, anxieties 
or losses, or stagnation of enterprise, and becomes a grievous 
wrong, not to one only, but to many. And order, promptitude 
and exactitude and calculation as to time is indispensable in the 
home in order that there, shall be order, promptitude and cal¬ 
culation elsewhere or anywhere. Excuses may be accepted, or 
allowance made by the benevolent victims of the unpunctual, 
but they are neither moral nor compensatory, and, except they 
comprehend some sudden calamity like sickness or wreck or 
loss, or the tardiness of another, are never valid. They never 
save the credit of a debtor, nor the credit, suffering or loss of 
his creditor, nor recall lost opportunity. Their mischiefs ex¬ 
tend incalculably in disordering, not one man’s business, but 
the entire business circle. No man or woman should ordinarily 
seek or accept credit or make an appointment, without a reason¬ 
able certainty and indefatigable calculations and efforts to ful¬ 
fill. And he, who is constantly obliged to rely upon excuses, 
and constantly makes them, may be set down as wanting fitness 
for any business or as untrustworthy, over-indulgent of others 
or himself, and lacking any intelligent rule of business morals 
or personal or domestic economy, unless the excuse be one of 
the inevitable kind above referred to ; and even then, he must be 
deficient in that calculation and practical knowledge of business 
and of men, and of his duty to himself and his creditors, which 
can alone make the most moral in disposition really trust¬ 
worthy, or too indulgent to his own debtors to be safely trusted 
by any one. 


THE MORALS OF TIMELINESS. 


93 


Every man or woman has a right to calculate upon and 
does calculate upon the promptitude of another, and that other 
must know that he has no right to thwart that calculation, or to 
consume the time or hold back the money, or the property or 
purchase of another, or to substitute profitless or unavailing ex¬ 
cuses in place of fulfillment. 

God’s law of right exacts punctuality and timeliness of 
every man, woman aud child in his or her sphere. Even the 
child, who is not punctually and regularly at school, sustains 
life losses which no parent can measure. And yet, without 
order and a regular system based on good calculation and good 
rules, no punctuality is possible in the household, in business or 
business appointments. And this punctuality and regularity, 
little observed among savages, is characteristic of the highest 
civilization, and, among civilized peoples, the vulgar or 
thoughtless only, imagine that they can judge of the needs of 
others, or of these whom they deem rich; and subordinate their 
just dues to their own indulgences, or that their own alleged 
poverty and the other’s supposed plenitude ought to absolve 
them from the performance of obligations, and that excuses 
ought to be taken by men in apparent good circumstances in 
place of fulfillment. And it is this low idea of duty, and the 
lack of will, calculation or self-denial, or ability to contrive how 
to meet obligations promptly, that discredits them and perpet¬ 
uates their poverty and helplessness. For, in fact, men of 
large means, engaged in large transactions, are apt to suffer 
most and to be most easily discredited and ruined by the failure 
of those upon whom they rely for means to discharge their own 
obligations, and cannot afford to convert business transactions 
into charities. Punctuality, promptitude and regularity are 
therefore laws not of business only, but among the highest and 
most constant of the moral laws affecting man’s condition and 
equality of justice in the common affairs of life, and God loves 
and prospers the man, who, having made an engagement, ful- 
filleth it, even though such fulfillment be to his own injury. 
He was not obliged to enter into it, but having made it, he 
must fulfill it. Hence the plea of usury, whatever be the law 
or the policy of the law, can never be otherwise than immoral, 
but it is not more immoral than the spirit of extortion which 


94 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDL 


exacts ruinous interest or advantage for a needed loan from a 
responsible or reliably punctual person. But where a real 
hazard of delay or loss is incurred, the rule must be otherwise, 
and then, as the usurer acts in view of that contingency, he 
need not complain, if, in any way, it overtakes him. 

No man is in a position 'to judge, or has the right to guess 
the needs or business relations of another, and none can absolve 
themselves of this duty of timeliness in fulfilling obligations by 
presumptuously forming such judgments in justification or ex¬ 
cuse of tardiness. All that one can rightly seek to know is his 
own obligation and duty. He has no right to know the busi¬ 
ness needs of another, or to judge them or speculate about 
them. But tardiness cannot be predicated, where no term of 
credit is fixed-or the course and terms of dealing, are not under¬ 
stood by both parties. 

But consistent with this discharge of duty is a right and 
duty of present living and enjoyment. Of course that right is 
limited by one’s capacity to do, and by doing, so as to rightly 
and justly command the means of living and enjoyment, and 
the ability to do so, other things being equal, depends on fac¬ 
ulty, knowledge, skill, endurance and timely system and methods. 
As has been stated previously, every instinct, sentiment, passion 
and faculty of man craves, and, except in moments of satiety, 
feebleness or depression, enjoys its object, and is pained only 
by excess or perversion on the one hand and hunger or craving 
denied on the other. Moderate capacity, skill, endurance and 
diligence may attain for a limited family, the necessaries of 
life. Grander capabilities, skill, endurance and diligence, or a 
command of profitable multiplied servitors or sub-workers can 
alone attain its luxuries, elegancies and grandeurs. Every en¬ 
joyment that instinct, passion, sentiment, faculty or aspiration 
can thirst for, or seek or attain, not excessive nor perverse, nor 
debasing nor injurious to one’s self or another, is innocent and 
multiplies harmlessly the felicities of life, and their cravings 
wisely inhere in man to that end and intensify his activities. 
Of course they who quench aspirations, or enervate faculty, or 
fail thoroughly to improve time, and to train energies, skill and 
faculty or power, complain in vain of their narrow lot and lim¬ 
ited enjoyments, and cannot rightly appropriate in any form, 


THE MORALS OF TIMELINESS. 


95 


the just dues of another. And they, who having better attain¬ 
ments or endowments, give rein unseasonably or wrongfully to 
passion and appetite, or even unduly tax the higher faculties, 
suffer in their turn, from satiety and excess, in ruined physical 
constitutions, enfeebled vitality and disordered or wrecked 
minds or nerves. And thus the laws of the human constitu¬ 
tions, avenge alike the sin of defect or excess. The moral law 
permits every normal enjoyment to those who rightly win and 
wisely use them, and to none other permanently, nor to any 
does it accord any breach of itself, ignorant or willful, without 
an infliction of an assured merited penalty in this life, even 
when saved from the penalties of a hereafter. 

But as man lives not for a day or. a year or the fleeting 
present only, but for a long term of years and a hereafter, he 
cannot afford to sacrifice the enjoyments of the future to any 
present enjoyment, nor the enjoyments of the high, holy and 
blessed hereafter to all the enjoyments of this life. Nor is it 
moral to starve in the winter by enjoying the luxuriance and 
plenty and delights of the passing summer, as does many a 
savage, and which the savage of civilized or uncivilized sur¬ 
roundings is slow to learn, nor is it moral to starve in the pres¬ 
ent and enfeeble vitality or power, for some vision of plenty, 
of power or grandeur in the future, as is sometimes done in the 
midst of civilization—a wrong peculiar to the excessive rivalries 
and ambitions of civilized life. For every right gratification, 
rightly secured, of every instinct, sentiment, passion and faculty 
in harmony with the dictates of reason, conscience and faith, 
tends to exalt and invigorate the whole man ; as every starving 
of them and hopelessness of enjoyment tends to depress the 
whole man, and more or less enfeebles him who is not consti¬ 
tuted a spirit only, endowed with spiritual powers and knowing 
and discharging duties, but an animal also, endowed with all the 
animal instincts necessary to the maintenance of the life of earth, 
and to perpetuate a succession of like beings. The wise and the 
capable find it necessary to sacrifice neither to the other. And 
could men and women but realize how entirely within the reach 
of steady, intelligent, timely efforts are all the necessary and right¬ 
ful enjoyments, of life, from their youth up, nine-tenths of the 
sin and crime of the world would vanish from it like its mists. 


96 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


Alike to the enjoyments and self-denials of life, there is a 
just time, place and limit, and beyond the bounds of either the 
proper time, place or limit lies indecency, sin or wrong. And 
there is a time and the gravest reasons for both enjoyment and 
the self-denial which is the mother of self-control, in their due 
season, which wisdom must discern or parents or masters or the 
church teach, and diligence study to know, and for disregard of 
which all men alike suffer the penalty, whether that disregard 
consist in excess or privation, or arise from sloth, ignorance or 
willfulness. For a stern necessity attends all divine law of con¬ 
stitutions. And so long as earth endures and man subsists upon 
it, there will continue to be a time and mode of God’s appoint¬ 
ment, with narrow limits of choice to man, for all things done 
or to be done under the sun, that will fly unimproved save by 
the thoughtful, diligent and pains-taking only. All others 
must and will continue to do and attempt out of time, and 
suffer loss and penalty thereby, and inflict loss and penalty on 
all who have the folly ignorantly, heedlessly or benevolently to 
trust them too far or become associated with them too closely. 

Whatever duty of timeliness one may owe to another, in 
order that he may be always able to discharge that duty and 
maintain his reputation, he owes it as a duty to himself and his 
own family and dependents, either by his own efforts or hired 
help, always to keep fully abreast of the work of every day, for 
he knows not what a day may bring forth, and every day is 
sure in any business or housekeeping to bring its own work, for 
which he must ever stand prepared, and it is alike his duty to 
enforce, in business matters generally, the same promptitude 
from others, which he practices himself. 


OUR DUTY TO OUR NEIGHBOR, ETC. 


97 


» 


CHAPTER XYI. 

OUR DUTY TO OUR NEIGHBOR AND NEIGHBORHOOD. 

But man must live somewhere; and, in a populous coun¬ 
try, must have a neighborhood and neighbors. They may or 
may not be of his social or business circle, or church ; but the 
mere fact of vicinage brings with it some special duties. In 
his neighborhood, unless it be a very exceptional one, there 
must be adversity, sickness, pain, sorrow, poverty, ignorance, 
debasement or multiform suffering. Providence puts them, as 
it were, at his very door, and he cannot be justified in passing 
them by, to do good in some remoter real, or imaginary sphere. 
He is happily endowed with knowledge to correct fatal errors, 
the prudence to warn against indiscretion and wrong, the moral 
and spiritual endowments to elevate the grovelling and the irre¬ 
ligious, the science to relieve pain, the pecuniary means or 
opportunity of employment to alleviate want, wisdom to in¬ 
spire hope and faith in a higher future or in a future state and 
a better life, to comfort and console the world-weary or sorrow¬ 
ing heart and open to the suffering gleams of Heaven and its 
glories and bliss. Are all these endowments or any of them 
for himself or his narrow home alone? Can any man or 
woman, so endowed, afford to be so engrossed with self and 
family, and their own social circle, business and church, as to 
ignore and pass by any of these God-given opportunities for 
good lying at his very door, in his own street, neighborhood, 
village, town or city ? How many self-respecting people, above 
beggary and crime, willing to work, have been found through 
sickness or want of employment, starved to death in populous 
neighborhoods! How can any mortal justify himself to his 
own conscience or to the deity for such neglect of near duty ? 
Nihil humanum a me alienum puto , * is and must be the 
maxim alike of the Christian and the sage. 

But the intelligent and the capable owe a duty also to 
their neighborhood simply as a locality, and, that is, to have 

* I deem nothing human alien to me. 

Gr 


t 




98 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


done in and for it such public work as is essential to its health, 
safety and convenience, and, so far as their own property is 
concerned, to keep it in good, healthful and decent order and 
preservation, a credit and an ornament to the locality, and 
never to permit it to degenerate into an approach to a nuisance. 

Shamelessness flaunts its wretchedness to the public eye, 
and a mean, debased spirit, publishes its poverty and its readi¬ 
ness to lean upon the charity of others, while a decent self-re¬ 
spect and firm will to deserve whatever it enjoys, conceals 
both, and, failing in employment and hoping for better things, 
perishes in the midst of surrounding plenty which it is without 
means honestly and honorably to attain. Charity, as generally 
administered, tends to destroy this self-respect and breed beg¬ 
gary. It is the self-respecting class especially, and not the 
other, that needs, not the charity of unearned gifts, but the 
higher charity of sympathy with their honest and honorable 
self-respect, and employments, whereby in a self-respecting 
way, such unfortunates can help themselves. Besides allevia¬ 
tion of pain, sickness and suffering, the best service, which one 
neighbor can render another, is to recommend or help him or 
her to suitable employment, and console him in adversity or 
affliction. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

THE CITIZEN’S DUTY TO HIS NATIVE OR ADOPTED LAND, HIS 
FELLOW CITIZENS AND THE STATE. 

In every land where there is any degree or form of free¬ 
dom, there must be, in relation to the state, three classes of 
meritorious men—first, the men who are content to be simple 
citizens and aspire to no public trusts, but discharge all the 
duties of citizenship to the best of their knowledge and ability 
—second, the men, who, aspiring to public posts of honor or 
emolument, are especially active and become known as poli¬ 
ticians—and third, the men, who by study of constitutions of 
government and their workings in history at home and abroad, 



99 


THE CITIZENS’ DUTY, ETC. 

and of the story of the rise and decadence of states and the 
grandeur and debasement of populations, and of the principles 
of a sound political economy, and by their practice in politics 
and experience in high office, may deserve the honorable appella¬ 
tion of statesmen. 

As to the love of one’s native land, or in a word, patriot¬ 
ism, as a sentiment, it is scarcely possible to imagine that there 
is any one who can fail to feel its promptings at times. The 
land of his nativity and the scene of the happy hours of child¬ 
hood—the home of one’s adoption in which he has found shelter 
from the needs, sufferings, oppression or persecution of other 
lands that so drove him into exile—the home of his freest and 
most prosperous days, and of the joys, affections and labors of 
maturer manhood or womanhood, with all the multiplicity of 
its clinging affections, cannot be otherwise than dear to every 
citizen— 

“Breathes there the man, with soul so dead 
Who never to himself has said 
This is my own, my native land— 

Whose heart has ne’er within him burned 
As home his footsteps he hath turned, 

From wandering on a foreign strand ? 

If such there be, go mark him well— 

For him no minstrel raptures swell— 

The wretch, concentred all in self, 

Living shall forfeit fair renown, 

And doubly dying shall go down 

To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, 

Unwept, unhonored and unsung.” 

But the sentiment itself, like every other mere sentiment, 
is a mere luxury of self-indulgence, in idle vagary, and is of 
little worth, except as it prompts steadily to the proper activi¬ 
ties whenever the occasion calls for patriotic action. There are 
times when no occasion seems to require its action, and it may 
then be relatively dormant. And one of the excellencies of 
constitutions of free government is, that they require constant 
active exercise of the patriotic duty of intelligent action and 
vigilance. There are other occasions, when, under any govern¬ 
ment, its dormant condition or inaction is a moral wrong and a 
neglect of patriotic duty. There are few, who cannot be roused 
to the discharge of its appropriate duties in times of imminent 


100 


VIA VINCENDI MORALIS. 


danger or deadly peril—while there are multitudes, who, in 
peaceful times utterly neglect or violate its most ordinary 
duties. The former are cowards, or such utter egotists, as to be 
almost beneath contempt. The latter include many who need 
only an awakening to the discharge of the more common and 
less heroic and often disagreeable current duties. In ordinary 
times the indulgence of the mere sentiment is only a luxury, 
and but another of the manifold forms of human selfishness or 
self-delusion, unless it lead to sound practical thought and cor¬ 
responding action in regard to men and measures capable of 
affecting the public welfare and the true grandeur and glory of 
the country, and the just liberty, security, worth and happiness 
of its people. Even a living, ever-active, sentiment of patriot¬ 
ism can only be beneficent, when it prompts to its appropriate 
studies and correlative action. It is not the mere selfish in¬ 
dulgence of a pleasant contemplative emotion or of a wayward 
capricious activity, but a daily practical study and performance 
of duties which exact, and to which are devoted time and 
labor. 

In every land, and under every government, right legisla¬ 
tion, a due and just execution of good laws, the peace which 
results from a knowledge of and obedience to them, the impar¬ 
tial administration of justice, the preservation of good order 
and the repression of crime and of all offences in violation of 
or tending to a breach of the peace, are essential to the welfare 
of every community. But in every land, there ever has been 
and doubtless ever will be headstrong, unruly, untrained, im¬ 
moral, vicious and criminal spirits needing the hand of repres¬ 
sion and a coercion of law to compel a surrender of rights due 
from them to others. It is specially a police duty to restrain 
these within due bounds. The few earnest, intelligent, thought¬ 
ful people, without the municipal law may possibly be a law 
unto themselves; others cannot be, and require the enactment 
and enforcement of civil laws. To this end, governments of 
various forms and powers, but founded on a like* necessity and 
having the same rightful purposes and ends, are instituted and 
organized, and their powers in the most civilized modern coun¬ 
tries are rightly and wisely distributed into legislative, judicial 
and executive departments, and, in the United States, also be- 


THE CITIZENS DUTY, ETC. 


101 


tween the state and federal government, each in their three-fold 
departments. And the jealous guardianship and preservation, 
against aggression, invasion or insidious attack, of these con¬ 
stitutions of government, and the maintenance of the just inde¬ 
pendence of each government and each department, and a wise 
scrutiny and condemnation of the acts of either government or 
any department of either, through which attack can be made 
upon another or upon popular liberties or rights, is a primary 
patriotic daily duty of every citizen. 48 

The legislature, as to the state, or as to the United States, 
its congress, prescribes the written, or the unwritten (the com¬ 
mon law in cases not covered by positive specific enactment) 
rule of right wherever and as to whatsoever things and persons, 
to which either the state or the 1 federal power constitutionally 
extends, and the rules thus established are known as laws, and 
except they be unconstitutional, are obligatory alike on the 
governor and on the governed, until they can be repealed or 
judicially annulled. The legislative action, except for pur¬ 
poses of repeal or of appeal to the courts, forecloses all action 
upon private judgment either as to their constitutionality, wis¬ 
dom, expediency or rightfulness, for it is the solemn adjudica¬ 
tion of the community through presumably its best and most 
capable men, selected with a view to rightly discharge that 
duty, to which all and every citizen must in action at least and 
in abstinence from forbidden acts, submit. And thereafter the 
assertion of a right of action based upon a hostile private judg¬ 
ment, except as it may take the form of action through the 
courts and processes of the law or by appeal or for repeal, 
tends only to anarchy and overthrows government practically, 
and reduces it to a mere form or shadow utterly powerless to 
coerce the headstrong and the powerful, and is subversive of all 
the purposes of good government. There is ever a higher law, 
the law of morals and of God, but in organized societies it 
must work, not resistance to constituted law and authority, but 
by its lawful reformation or lawful annulment. And when, if 
ever, the legislative body has become and continues so corrupt 
or incompetent, that its legislation is subversive of the just in¬ 
terests of the people and oppressive to the mass of them, 
and destructive of their possibility of happiness under republi- 


102 


YIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


can forms, the people must themselves have become corrupt, and 
genuine freedom has left those forms but a dead corpse, and the 
republic has lost its chief virtue—the protection of the weak 
from the unjust and partial and self-seeking dominion of the 
strong. But “if the salt hath lost its savor, wh ere with shall it 
be seasoned ?” Hence there is a necessity for vigilant general 
moral training, for there is no possible redemption except 
through the regeneration of the constituency. 

The function of the executive department is to execute the 
laws and the decrees of the judiciary; and, of the chief execu¬ 
tive, to appoint some subordinates with or without the consent 
of the senate, to see that other executive officers discharge their 
duty, and before he approves or vetoes a bill to inquire and de¬ 
cide as to its wisdom, expediency and constitutionality, and to 
approve or Veto it according to his own judgment, thereby de¬ 
feating its becoming a law, or making it law through his final 
sanction. Hence, to enact really oppressive laws, either the 
executive also must be corrupted or at least two-thirds of the 
legislative body. But, whatever is thus enacted by the legisla¬ 
ture or decreed finally by the judiciary, he is bound to enforce 
—unless perhaps, by the refusal to execute a law or a decree in 
which a constitutional question is involved, he may remit to 
the decision of the people, in his own or other subsequent elec¬ 
tion of a president or a governor, the constitutional question, 
for their final and supreme decision. And there is a duty on 
every citizen, to watch and approve and condemn this branch 
of governmental administration according to a right, careful 
and wise judgment of its acts. But whenever this department 
is, by reason of the insubordinate temper of the people or its 
own relative feebleness or dependence, become too habitually 
imbecile to enforce laws and judicial decrees, true popular 
government is to that extent subverted in fact, and a stronger 
and more controlling or more independent and enduring execu¬ 
tive power and tenure of office may be demanded and will 
supercede popular government as it ought otherwise to exist. 

It is the function of the judiciary to decide according to 
law all questions arising in cases properly presented to it as to 
legal rights and wrongs, and, with or without a jury, as the law 
may require, either to decide all questions of fact or to submit 


103 


THE CITIZENS’ DUTY, ETC. 

them to a jury for their decision, and to administer justice ac¬ 
cording to law, or in cases unprecedented, according to those 
principles of abstract right and justice, which are the supposed 
or real basis of the common law. This department, like any 
other, may so decide questions as to invade or derogate from 
the province or function of either dual government or other de¬ 
partments thereof, or sanction their invasion, or invasions, of 
popular rights and liberties; or its members, or some of them, 
may become corrupt, and, through fear, favor or bribe, pervert 
justice, and its incumbents may need to be watched, especially 
by the bar, and perhaps at times corrected by declaratory legisla¬ 
tive acts, or displaced by impeachment and removal, or by election. 

Hence there devolves upon every citizen, in ordinary times 
of peace, and even in war, when the danger of arbitrary revo¬ 
lutionary excesses of power are greatest, the duty of a vigilant 
observation and correct judgment of the acts and tendencies of 
public measures and men, and of all departments of the gov¬ 
ernment. And this duty, when correction or change, or reten¬ 
tion and support become necessary, imposes upon the citizen 
the easy but often unpleasant duty of attending primary cau¬ 
cuses to name delegates to nominating conventions, and upon 
every uninstructed delegate chosen by such caucuses or other 
conventions, the duty of attending the conventions to which 
they are sent, and of acting in them with an eye to the public 
good and as faithful representatives of the public interests en¬ 
trusted to their care. And his acceptance of such positions 
presupposes that he has watched the course of public men and 
parties, and knows or will ascertain the character, principles 
and views of the men proposed for office, and imposes upon 
him a duty of not being influenced by mere self-interest or by 
fear, favor or bribe, and of approving or disapproving candi¬ 
dates, their character, fitness and acts, according to their actual 
merits or demerits. And no voter or delegate can be a good 
citizen, who lives in utter ignorance of public men or measures, 
or of the fundamental principles or constitution of his govern¬ 
ment, or of moral laws. Nor can any be safely good citizens 
who tie themselves servilely to party or faction, and unintelli- 
gently, or without or against conscience or judgment, follow 
leaders and obey the behests of any partizan machine. 


104 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


A higher duty rests upon those citizens whose leisure, cir¬ 
cumstances and opportunity enable them to be best informed in 
the sciences of government, political economy, statesmanship, 
and public acts and movements and public men—that of striving 
according to their leisure, time, opportunity and ability, to in¬ 
form and correct the judgments of other citizens less fortunate 
than themselves. And this duty now especially and largely 
devolves upon the controllers of the press and its contributors. 

And the honest and capable student, toiler and actor in 
the noble field of politics and state affairs, like the toiler in any 
other field of labor, alone deserves and should receive its com¬ 
pensations, according to the character and value of his services 
and his capacity and integrity. The test of fitness for an office 
is not mere familiarity with the routine work of an office, which 
is easily acquired by a person of average ability and diligence. 
That is, in a degree, desirable; but a higher test is a practical 
knowledge and zealous study and practice of the duties of citi¬ 
zenship ; for he, who, without fee or reward, devotes time to 
and masters these duties, and “honorably and capably fulfills 
them, may, with equal certainty be relied on to master and ful¬ 
fill any other public duty, to the discharge of which he may be 
called. In imposing any tests of capacity and fitness to hold 
civil office, no mere knowledge of routine, unaccompanied by 
due intelligence and practice of civil and political duties, ought 
to suffice. And as views differ and opposing parties form upon 
conflicting views of men, measures and duty, an active but 
not a blind, furious or bigoted partizanship, intelligent and not 
merely factional, is, and ought to be, one of the essential tests 
of appointment to office; but he, who, however skilled in states¬ 
manship, lives in or by a violation or perversion of the laws of 
his country, can never be a safe or fit repository of any of its 
powers or trilsts. 

But, in the providence of God, many forms of government 
have existed and do exist, each of which may be good or bad, 
according to the character and capacity of those who rule its 
administration, for there is no magic in a name or form. Each 
form was and is doubtless adapted to the conditions, needs or 
capabilities or incapacity of the people governed ; and each, in 
their origin at least adapted to their then changing conditions and 


105 


THE CITIZENS 5 DUTY, ETC. 

requirements, although based each, at different eras, on different 
and perhaps antagonistic principles of administration. Thus, a 
people generally incapable of good self-government, must be 
ruled by an autocrat or an oligarchy, while a people, whose 
masses are self-controlling and just, conscientious and intelli¬ 
gent, God-fearing and seeking to know and obey his laws in all 
things, may be self-governing and live under democratic or re¬ 
publican forms, or under mixed forms, partly aristocratic or 
monarchic and partly popular, or approximating more or less to 
either extreme. 

And , among the first duties of citizenship an*d statesmanship 
is that of recognizing and studying the true genius and char¬ 
acter of peoples or nations, and the spirit and character of their 
institutions and their history, and especially those of their own 
land ; and, in order to perpetuate their own free institutions and 
the divine right of their posterity to enjoy them, to train their 
own children not to inordinate ambitions, dissipations, self-in¬ 
dulgence, greed, emulations and waywardness, but to the prac¬ 
tice of that self-control which subordinates all the instincts, 
affections and passions to the control of enlightened judgment, 
integrity, justice and equity, and all ambitions into the pursuit 
of honor-seeking through high and valuable service rather than 
that of autocratic command, imperiousness or' imperialism. 
The aspirant is noble indeed, when, like the great Greek, he 
can rejoice that a state has citizens more worthy than himself! 

Whatever be the form of government, its true sphere and 
high duty is the same under all forms ; and that is simply to 
defend the equal rights of all, to enforce right, repress partial¬ 
ity, evil-doing, wrong and crime, and to allow to every indi¬ 
vidual his equally free course to pursue his own welfare and 
happiness in his own right way, according to his ability, natural 
or acquired. 48 And the duty of the subject, whether all gov¬ 
erning or governed is the same in all, and that is, to respect 
and obey all the laws, and all legal authority 49 until they can 
be changed lawfully, and to submit to all forms of government 
until the progressive people, fitted for a better form, by a com¬ 
petent majority, take power into their own hands to be exer¬ 
cised by and through their own elected agents and adopt a new 
constitution to that end. And no power on earth can with 


106 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


force, rightfully resist the assumption by the people, through 
peaceful agencies, of such power to change the constitution of 
their government, without invoking to the side of the people 
and in their behalf the right of armed revolution, and becom¬ 
ing guilty of treason against the people. For the right and 
correlative duty of self-government inheres not only in the in¬ 
dividual, but also through the individual in the nation; and 
governments are rightful only through the tacit or express con¬ 
sent of the governed; and whensoever they withdraw their 
consent, they have the right so to do and reorganize it, and 
when the people become capable of themselves controlling its 
powers, it becomes their privilege so to do, and when they are 
not so capable, it is equally a right and duty promotive of the 
general welfare, that they consent to be governed theocratic- 
ally, aristocratically, imperially or otherwise, and submit to such 
government. 

Unless the citizen understand, especially in a free state, 
the form and spirit and fundamental reason and theory of the 
government of his own country and the vital principles under¬ 
lying it, he must fail to recognize alike its beauties and excel¬ 
lencies on the one hand or its dangers, perversions and abuses 
on the other; nor can he discriminate and judge aright defects, 
or fidelity and excellence in its administration, nor correct the 
former without the honest instruction of more studious men 
skilled in statesmanship, although the same citizen may judge 
of them aright upon their fair presentation by others. Hence 
free speech and a free press are essential to free men, and polit¬ 
ical agitations are the very life of a republic. But this agita¬ 
tion must not be based on falsehood, fraud, concealment, 
malevolence or detraction ; and it is an ever-living duty of 
patriotic citizens of every party to frown upon and suspect all 
such agitators, and to tolerate naught but truth, candor, honor, 
fair argument, wit and true eloquence in public speakers or in 
the press . 50 

If constitutions, institutions, administrations or laws or de¬ 
cisions are defective, or mischievous, unwise or wrong, it be¬ 
comes the imperative duty of all citizens, under all forms of 
government, to labor for their modification, change or even an¬ 
nihilation if necessary; but if they are good, just, beneficent and 


107 


THE CITIZENS’ DUTY, ETC. 

right, or if they are the best which the character and conditions 
of a people or a country admit, although perhaps not perfect, 
then it is an equal duty to defend, maintain and perpetuate 
them until a change of circumstances, condition and character 
demand a change. The more perfect a people is morally or in¬ 
tellectually, and in its general condition, the more fit they are 
for the freest possible government, and, in fact if every indi¬ 
vidual in it were perfect, all might be left, each to govern him¬ 
self, and the entire machinery of every kind of earthly govern¬ 
ment be abolished, and God’s laws alone, discerned by his in¬ 
telligence and obeyed by his free will, reign supreme over 
mankind. And hence, in general, in the world, the voluntary 
submission of any people to any particular form of government 
is the best test and evidence of its fitness for them, and, except 
in the case of a people by nature unruly, self-willed, obstinate 
in factiousness, anarchical and corrupt, the best test of fitness 
for a better and higher or self-controlling form of government, 
is their restiveness under a different form, and the moderation 
and wisdom with which they seek to inaugurate a change. 
And if there be a constitutional method of amendment, that 
method should ever be first, if not solely pursued ; and if none 
then where there is a legislature, movement for the change 
ought to be organized through and by that body, for, if it be 
really an amendment, sooner or later, it will so commend itself 
to the public favor that it will prevail, unless some selfish or 
class interest, power or force prevent and then only, more revo¬ 
lutionary or irregular methods or processes become justified. 

Every citizen has thus a right, under any form of govern¬ 
ment, to agitate for what he may deem a reform, alike in its 
constitution, administration and law. But, in regard to the re¬ 
publican forms, which are most easily changed and are in them¬ 
selves intrinsically the best form of government, it becomes the 
duty of the citizen to conserve and guard its constitution with 
peculiar jealousy against any perversion or overthrow of its 
fundamental principles, and to examine critically and carefully 
any proposed modification or supposed reforms, lest they be 
found practically to overthrow it or its essential principles and 
muniments of real freedom. The more just a people is, the 
less governmental powers need enlargement. The Roman re- 


108 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


public became an empire, not by a change in its forms and 
names of office, but by a union in one head of the state, of the 
consular, tribunitial, dictatorial, and of the legislative offices 
and powers through the servility of the senate, and the hero- 
worship of the populace. And, throughout our own late civil 
war, under a misconstruction of a so-called war power, which 
has reference only to the armed public enemy, and to actually 
invaded districts only, the despotism of martial law, the full 
equivalent of the old Roman dictatorial power, unknown to 
our federal constitution, prostrated every muniment of civil 
liberty throughout all the peaceful states, leaving to our people 
in future possible wars, the heritage of a fearful precedent. 

If amendment be desired, it should be sought by open and 
frank agitation, not by secret conspiracy, combination and in¬ 
trigue, and in the constitutionally appointed way. And hero- 
worship is so dangerous in itself that the Athenian law, in the 
days of Athens’ greatest grandeur, permitted its people by their 
votes, to ostracize her greatest, best and most illustrious citizens, 
and, without accusation of any offence to send them into exile. 
It is right to honor exalted service and to reward it; but it is 
also right to judge the great as we judge the little, by their 
current acts, and to worship, and implicit^ and with boundless 
faith trust, God alone ! 

But in the United States, we have not only a state govern¬ 
ment but also a government of the United States, and to both 
within their sphere, the citizen owes loyalty and obedience, and 
to the usurpation of either beyond its sphere, or its invasion of 
the sphere of the other or reserved rights of the people he owes, 
not obedience, but opposition and resistance, by all the rightful 
and peaceful modes known to the laws and permissible or prac¬ 
ticable under them. The sphere of each government is marked 
with great distinctness, except perhaps as to the incidental 
powers of the federal government, in regard to which only is 
there room for controversy. The state government has within 
each state all powers of legislation not expressly limited or for¬ 
bidden in its own constitution or bill of rights, or in the federal 
constitution granted exclusively to the federal government. 
The latter government has no powers except those which are 
expressly granted in its charter, and such as are really neces- 


109 


THE CITIZENS’ DUTY, ETC. 

sary to carry such granted powers into execution, limited by 
the bill of rights; all other powers being expressly reserved to 
the states and the people. And it is necessary that every good 
citizen comprehend the latter limitation and its reason, and ap¬ 
preciate its force, viz : That the sagacious framers of the fed¬ 
eral constitution, having provided in the federal constitution 
itself a guaranty of a republican form of government for the 
several states, regarded the unit government, with its extended 
domain and vast patronage as especially dangerous alike to the 
just prerogatives of the states and the liberties of the people, 
and most liable to degenerate into despotism under popular or 
other forms, over both. Every good citizen owes it to those 
constitutions of government, which are designed to secure a 
just freedom to all, to make himself familiar with them, and to 
guard and sustain in good faith this allotment of powers, until 
he shall be convinced that he has studied out or the world has 
provided and approved a better; and then it becomes his duty 
to seek to change it, not by doubtful, questionable or wrong 
constructions, nor insidious approaches or usurpations, but in 
the open, honest and honorable way of sound argument, distinct 
proposition, open agitation and clear definite amendment . 51 

Ought a citizen to oppose in any way, the prosecution of a 
war unjustly or hastily begun by his own country to enforce 
inequitable demands or for purposes of conquest or aggrandize¬ 
ment, or to establish or maintain unwise or unjust principles of 
national or international law or policy ? Every such war, so 
long as it is and remains a war of aggression, ought to be op¬ 
posed by every conscientious citizen, not by a denial of proper 
supplies or by conspiracies or other factious proceedings where¬ 
by our own innocent citizens or soldiers may be endangered or 
slaughtered, but by every other customary or legitimate mode 
of agitation known to the law, and every repression of such 
agitation, whether under the form of legal enactment or other¬ 
wise, is despotism and tyranny, and no duty rests upon him to 
fight in such a war. On the other hand when, if ever, the 
aspect' of the war changes so that the citizen’s own country is 
invaded, then it is changed into a war of rightful self-defense, 
.and the duty of protecting the country and promptly repelling 
the invader becomes paramount, and the arm of the legislative 


110 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


and executive power is to be steadfastly upheld to that end by 
every right means in the citizen’s power, and it becomes his 
duty, if need be, to enlist in any requisite service, civil or mili¬ 
tary, and to fight to repel the invader, unless he can do better 
and more effective service in other fields of patriotic duty than 
in its battle fields. Dulce est pro patria mori is not only the 
utterance of heroic patriotism, but it embodies a lofty maxim 
of sound and pure morality and of the noble instinct of self- 
defense. For no one can, in an invaded country, defend him¬ 
self or his own, save by defending his country and repelling the 
invader. And, in a just war, the principles of duty applicable 
to a defensive war ought to prevail, for such a war defending 
or prosecuting a just right, is essentially and in the best sense, 
defensive. Nations and individuals must maintain, by combat 
actual or legal, their just rights, or they will soon lose all and 
have none to defend. 

But the brightest glory of the republican constitutions of 
the states and of the United States rests in their recognition 
and practical though not verbal embodiment of that funda¬ 
mental principle of liberty distinctly and authoritatively enun¬ 
ciated to the world in their declaration of independence. “All 
men are created free and equal,” and one of the.great duties of 
American citizenship is, to see to it that this equality is not 
practically abolished or disturbed by gifts of inordinate or 
special privileges, prerogatives or franchises, or by any other 
special legislation creative of overshadowing forces capable of 
controlling autocratically the government and people, and im¬ 
pairing this equality. In their elements of character and in 
their real wants and aspirations born of them, though not in 
their master passions, mankind are one and the same, differing 
only in the relative force or degree of the different constituent 
elements of the one whole human character . 62 And although 
this predominance of one or another attribute of character or 
in the degree, power and training of the intellectual, moral, re¬ 
ligious or animal faculties and their powers of persistent en¬ 
durance of active effort, very soon operates infinite variety and 
a vast difference in the total character of each and in the con¬ 
ditions, circumstances and surroundings of men, these differ¬ 
ences cannot disturb nor annihilate the other moral law, that 


Ill 


THE CITIZENS 5 DUTY, ETC. 

among man’s inalienable rights is one which is equally the 
right of all and in morals to be equally respected by all and by 
governments, the equal right of each to “life, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness,” which equal right is proved by the fact 
that the creator has made all men endowed with the like in¬ 
stincts, appetites, desires, faculties, moral powers, affections and 
capabilities to enjoy happiness, although differing in kinds of 
happiness most persistently sought or enjoyed. Means to com¬ 
pass this happiness may and do differ, as powers, endurance and 
discipline of men or their ancestors differ or have differed ; but 
this right remains ever the same. As powers and means are 
wasted and misapplied, or rightly applied by one generation or 
another, the outward condition and opportunity is changed, 
and character is modified for better or worse, but not the right 
itself, nor is a single faculty extinguished, although it may be¬ 
come quite dormant or nearly idiotic. And herein is the real 
equality of man under our constitution and under providence— 
an equality according to our own and our ancestors’ merits and 
wisdom in externals and an identity in radical elements of char¬ 
acter, and not in exterior possessions, circumstances, conditions 
and surroundings, which cannot be attained or preserved with¬ 
out abolishing all earthly rewards of merit or penalties of de¬ 
merit under natural or God-made law. And it is this equality 
and the equal right of self-government, which are to be main¬ 
tained, guarded and preserved, and not that imaginary and 
absurd equality of condition which God’s natural law and his 
wise providence, and man’s self-inflicted or incidental varia¬ 
tions have no where ever instituted or permitted. The perfect 
conformity of man to one standard of physical or mental power, 
or external condition, unvaried by diligence, discipline, endur¬ 
ance or self-denying effort, can never wisely become the order 
of nature, and will never be realized until every man or woman 
attains to the type of a perfect manhood or womanhood; and 
without it or a commune, external and internal conditions of 
men cannot be equal and the same, and if attempted by com¬ 
munes they cannot be perpetuated 


112 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


CHAPTER XYIII. 

man’s DUTY TO MAN EVERYWHERE-BENEVOLENCE AN 

INSTINCT-BENEFICENCE A DUTY. 

The most constant, obvious, urgent and imperative duties of 
man are near at hand, and they have reference to those with 
whom he is more or less nearly associated by locality and a 
community of interests and opportunity. 

But human sympathies and sentiments are world-embrac¬ 
ing, and the human intelligence grasps, not only the idea of that 
little world which is near and about him, and in which his 
actual interests lie, and are to be affected, but also of the greater 
world and more remote, which spreads wide beyond the con¬ 
fines of his own land and country, and of worlds that are to be 
after life’s fitful fever is over. And duty is as wide and diffu¬ 
sive as man’s ideas, knowledge and sympathies, and has no limit 
except that which want of knowledge, means, power or op¬ 
portunity imposes. And an all-comprehensive instinct of ben¬ 
evolence prompts to the discharge of its appropriate duty of 
beneficence everywhere. 

Hence the large-souled man or woman lives for himself, 
his family, his friends, his neighborhood, for aid to good insti¬ 
tutions at home, for his whole broad state and country and 
countrymen, but not for these alone. Wherever ignorance, 
superstition, barbarism, suffering, debasement, oppression, 
wretchedness, desolation, impiety, paganism, or any form of 
affliction prevails, though he be absent necessarily in person, 
his heart and soul goes forth with yearning to and is with the 
afflicted, and his hand reaches forth to discharge the duty of 
amelioration and improvement, at least by means of the wealth 
wherewith God has blessed him. 

Its sentiment breathes in the heavenly song of the angelic 
choir which sang on the first Christmas morning “Peace on 
earth and good will to men!” It is sanctified by all the sweet 
memories and charitable works of Christmas-tide. It is the 


113 


man’s duty to man everywhere, etc. 

spirit that brought the Redeemer incarnate into the world. 
Shakespeare, in terse and ever-living words, immortalizes its 
functions and office— 

“The quality of mercy is not strained, 

It droppeth like the gentle dew from heaven 
Upon the earth beneath. It is twice blessed, 

It blesseth him that gives and him thaMakes.” 

Y et, in man, unless it be attended by a right sense of duty, 
it is but a blind instinct impelling him to beneficent and merci¬ 
ful deeds and enkindling pitiful, generous aspirations and 
thoughts, and it needs the guidance and control of man’s in¬ 
telligence and reason, or it may itself become the author of in¬ 
justice and wrong. Though blind, it is the noblest of all the 
instincts except the instinct that impels to know and do the 
right, and the instinct that impels to know the Supreme and 
his will, and to worship him. But is it possible for benevo¬ 
lence, however misguided or uncontrolled, ever to become 
vice? 

When it is uncontrolled by reason, prudence and con¬ 
science, it does so degenerate, just as sexual love, the most 
necessary of our instincts does, but the vice is of a different 
name and nature—the vice of prodigality and profusion, in¬ 
stead of that of licentiousness. He, who gives on impulse and 
cannot resist solicitation—he, who gives at the sacrifice of his 
duty to those who cared for him in helplessness or of his abil¬ 
ity to pay to his creditors their just dues, or in derogation of 
his ability to fulfill his just duties to the helpless ones of his 
own family, or to the sacrifice of his ability to assume the fam¬ 
ily relation and its duties, or to the sacrifice of his duty to the 
•church and other institutions, is guilty of this vice. He, who 
yielding to the impulse of an erring benevolence, is induced by 
the compassion born of it, to recommend to any position the 
unworthy or incapable, or those whom he does not know to be 
both worthy and capable, and he, who conceals through pity 
.for one what ought to be known to another, or tells a falsehood 
to benefit another, is swayed by his benevolence into wrong and 
vice. He, who gives to the habitually idle or to the hopelessly 
prodigal or profligate, that which he could better employ or be¬ 
stow, is guilty thereby of encouraging idleness and thriftless 

H 


114 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


prodigality and licentiousness, and is working a wrong alike to 
the recipient and to the public. Charity, public or private, ex¬ 
cept in the case of the sick, infirm and disabled, or of sudden 
overwhelming calamity, should, as to the near at least, seek to 
furnish or procure only labor or employment suited to the con¬ 
dition and capacity of the recipient. Such charity breeds 
neither dissimulation, idleness, licentiousness, nor a base spirit 
and habit of utter and helpless dependence. It preserves the 
self-respect of the recipient, by the consciousness that he is 
earning all he receives, or at least all that he is able to earn. 
Even when the donor really means to give, it is better to do it 
through some useful but perhaps not necessary work. The 
best of all human charities is that of the employer who does not 
grind down his employee to starvation wages: and the rich can 
do mankind the highest service by employing their w,ealth in 
active industries that furnish compensatory employment to all 
who will labor, by founding schools of art or trade, and indus¬ 
trial schools, in which the scholar, while acquiring some pro¬ 
ficiency in useful art, can earn his own living and education in 
part at least or wholly, and by founding work-houses for those 
who require supervision in order to work at all, and hospitals 
for the really and utterly disabled in which their disability, if 
removable, may be remedied. Few are so old or so utterly dis¬ 
abled as to have no ability for any light employment, and with¬ 
out anything whatever to do, man rapidly falls into inanition or 
disease or decay. He or she, who has no time to inquire into 
the history, habits, or work of those who fall into dependence, 
should dispense his temporary home charities through some 
public or private agency or institution, and his permanent re¬ 
lief, chiefly by employing or finding or recommending to em¬ 
ployment or through some employment agency ; and both should 
be made, so far as possible, a means of reformation of the 
habits or practices which breed or beget dependence. Other¬ 
wise he knows not, and cannot know, whether by his charities 
he is not encouraging idleness, sensuality, intemperance or a 
multitude of vices in his beneficiaries, other and worse than 
that of dependence. Every unearned gift, except the equal 
gifts of mutual reciprocating friendship and regard, debases at 
least the self-respect of the recipient, and makes dependence 


man’s duty to man everywhere, etc. 115 

easier until it becomes habitual. Until this self-respect is lost 
or abased, no man or Wuman of reasonable intelligence or pride 
of character and position, will either seek or accept the gifts or 
doles of charity, if not utterly helpless. And, when one feels 
himself compelled by any stress of circumstances to accept his 
lirst gift of that unearned kind, he becomes to a great degree a 
bankrupt in self-respect and proper independence. 

To be so charitable by mere gifts requiring no sacrifice in 
the rich, gratifies not only benevolence, but pride and vanity 
also : but no man or woman, whose circumstances and earnings 
are not such that he can reasonably make good gifts to his own 
aged parents, nor well provide for the education of his own 
children, nor reasonably aid his own relatives by blood and 
marriage, and contribute his full quota to the support of the 
school, the Sunday school and the church, has, except in some 
cases of urgent immediate necessity, any right or duty to dis¬ 
sipate far and wide his substance, or to divert it from those 
more near, dear and certain duties. The right to be so philan- 
thropically charitable, and the pleasures derived from it must, 
in general, be won by the intensest efforts, industry and success. 

But, whether by the use of money or without it, charity 
remains still the duty of all men, and exacts of all the sufficient 
improvement of their time, talents, skill and opportunity, to 
rightly and actually practice it in some manner. The improv¬ 
ident, the undisciplined, the blindly self-indulgent, the mis¬ 
calculating or uncalculating, and the poor through one or the 
other of these or other causes “ye always have with you,” and, 
in all mankind God implants this instinct of benevolence, 
prompt to respond to earthly needs, physical, spiritual or moral. 
And the poorest may give kindly offices and service, and re¬ 
formatory counsel, suggestion and influence; may give, seek, or 
help to find employment for such as are willing to labor accord¬ 
ing to their ability, may exert their skill in suitable little nice 
preparations for the sick, may employ their little hygienic or 
nursing skill in relief of pain, suffering and illness; may gently, 
kindly and lovingly point out errors and tempt and persuade to 
their reformation, and so respond to the call of benevolence by 
a hundred little kindly and unostentatious good offices, scarcely 
noticed by the recipient or by the world, which never debase 


116 


VIA VINCENDI MORALIS. 


but always gratify the beneficiary, and, even, if it become 
necessary, by privately soliciting pecuniary aid for a worthy 
unnamed person of those who are able to give it, and them¬ 
selves dispensing it in these and like apparently friendly offices 
and offerings. Even Christ’s apostles, as they paused at the 
beautiful gate of the City of God, were obliged to say to the 
cripple who had day by day been brought and laid there to re¬ 
ceive alms of the passers-by, who could render him only that 
service—“Silver and gold have I none, such as I have give I 
unto thee.” And it is a more noble and Christian work, than 
to offensively suggest dependence, and openly offer alms, and 
does not abase any one. And, however narrow are our circum¬ 
stances and little our earnings, and occupied our days, all can 
still find some hours or minutes to visit the halt, the sick, the 
widow and the fatherless in their affliction, to encourage the 
feeble and the despondent, to watch by the bed of pain and 
death, and to inspire and lift up heedless souls to duty and to 
God. Such are the better and higher and more trying offices 
of benevolence, which the indolent and self-indulgent men or 
women of mere routine can never assume, and the ignorant can 
but imperfectly perform. But the benevolent, wise, God-fear¬ 
ing, time-using, and man-loving people in the world always 
have it in their power to well perform them, at least in some 
degree, however narrow their income or earnings may be. Yet, 
even they have no right to undertake it, to the neglect of like 
offices and duties at home, and must earn the privilege of do¬ 
ing them by a closer economy of time and more rapid, skilled 
and thorough work and diligence at home. True charity, really 
begins, and must begin, at home, and there is its true well- 
spring and constant school of practice, and thence its overflow¬ 
ing streams distribute themselves abroad. Charity is not the 
exclusive love of the stranger or of the family, but it is all em¬ 
bracing, and is the soul of universal love to all mankind, and, if 
real, it can no more neglect or pass by the dear ones of the 
home and hearth than the stranger. It is, like God, the light 
and life of the home and the world, and it everywhere prompts 
at least the constant kindly word and disinterested beneficent 
deed. Its proper, just and constant primary school of prac¬ 
tice is the home. They, who school not themselves to its prac- 


man's duty to man everywhere, etc. 117 

tiee there, may, through vanity, practice its semblance, but can 
practice it really, and well nowhere, and the simulated charity 
is but the offspring of ostentation, vanity, pride, ambition or 
other selfish or unworthy motive, yet it is perhaps better for 
the needy and the suffering that they so practice it, than to not 
practice it at all, for man exists nowhere in the world where 
occasions for its beneficent operation are not ever at hand and 
exigent of prompt relief by deed or counsel. 

And wherever it exists, it is the purest and most unsel¬ 
fish and God-like of motives—a hallowed and hallowing and 
wholly disinterested aspiration for the good of others, and 
yearning chiefly toward those, from whom in the ordinary 
course of human events we may reasonably expect no return, 
not even perhaps an appreciation of any sacrifice we may make 
in doing it, or even the return of a cheap sentiment of grati¬ 
tude. But true benevolence acts, not with a view to any antici¬ 
pated returns of any kind, not even the poor return of thankful 
words, but through and because of its God-inspired promptings 
only, and because he has imposed the duty of the distribution 
of his good gifts upon those whom he has adequately endowed, 
and has assured the fulfillment of that duty in and by the very 
constitution of our spiritual nature. 

But even so, if there be no higher prompting or conscious¬ 
ness of motive than this mere human sympathy so implanted, 
the joy of doing good, of dispensing one’s superfluous wealth 
near and far, is but cold and transient, unless to it be super- 
added the consciousness of his stewardship and the pious motive 
of returning to God’s afflicted children some portion of the 
good gifts with which the master has in a superior degree and 
through superior endowment blessed him, and a conscious obe¬ 
dience to the divine command, “Lav not up for yourselves treas¬ 
ures where moth and rust do corrupt and where thieves break 
through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, 
where neither moth nor rust do corrupt, and where thieves do 
not break through and steal.” This is the only real expression 
of gratitude to the divine power for any superior endowments 
or gifts to men. 

And these duties rest more immediately and urgently up¬ 
on the near people of the lands in which the ills to be corrected 


118 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


exist. Charity must begin, although it need not and must not 
end at home, as to those who by greater energy and industry of 
mind and body and economy, acquire means for them. He, 
who does not duly care for and educate his own darlings, can 
give only time and effort to the distresses around him, and he 
can give even these only by a due economy and thorough em¬ 
ployment of both effort and time; and he, who cannot relieve 
these near afflictions, otherwise than by time, effort, and skill, 
has, as his condition imperatively tells him, nothing to bestow 
abroad, for it would be a wrong and sin to neglect alleviation of 
the distresses in his own neighborhood, known perhaps only there 
or to him, in order to alleviate ills far away. But, as to those 
whom God has more abundantly blessed, not perhaps with larger 
original gifts and opportunities, or sympathies, but with grander 
improvement of them and grander present means and powers, 
duty is as wide as the world and its inhabitants, and calls wherever 
ignorance, immorality, heathenism, irreligion, want, woe or suf¬ 
fering exists, or human sympathies can be evoked by fitting ob¬ 
jects. Sympathy, in all who have not deadened it, tests the occa¬ 
sion, but reason and right principle must decide upon one’s own 
duty and its sphere. And what he, who has means, cannot 
attempt in person or alone, he must seek to effect by agents or 
missionaries and associated efforts, for which our laws provide, 
if the object be permanent. And wherever there is a knowl¬ 
edge of God and his laws, and of man’s duty thereby imposed, 
and of man’s spiritual nature and final destiny, the duty of 
propagating that knowledge exists, and wherever the true light 
and right knowledge of human duties on earth and of the 
many mansions of bliss in heaven, has not shone, the duty of 
illuminating the dark must be performed by all men to whom 
God has given any ability or means so to do ; and, if such men 
or women live aright, they must recognize the fact that at least 
as to their endowment of talents, opportunities and fortune, 
they are stewards of that higher power, the common father of 
all who entrusts to them that fortune for a time, or the ability 
which accumulated it, and permits none to carry aught of for¬ 
tune out of the world, and that a due portion of it ought to be 
and must be of right devoted to bring light, duty, life and im¬ 
mortality into the hearts and homes of those who sit in dark- 


man’s duty to man everywhere, etc. 119 

ness and in the shadow of woe, sin and death in the remotest 
realms of earth. 

Is there mere sacrifice and no real joy in the discharge of 
this world-wide duty to those to whom we have no special ties 
of affection, from whom we may receive no known manifesta¬ 
tions of gratitude, and whom we may never see on earth ? To 
those only, who have deadened their spiritual nature, and, by 
whom nothing is spiritually discerned, it may be so. 

But there is usually a luxury, even in the mere indulgence 
of humane sentiment and aspirations, that leads some to indulge 
them heedlessly, excessively or wrongly, and beyond their 
means; and the mere sentimental joy, that prompts to no action 
and active duty, is as perverse and vain as a hunger-prompted 
dream of feasts without the will to seek food, or the desire and 
dreams of great wealth without any disciplined and indefatiga¬ 
ble labor by which alone it is to be honorably won. And 
hence, no man or woman needs to feel himself any better or 
holier, or superior to others, because of such humane sentimen¬ 
talities. When only they prompt him to fit himself for superior 
toils, and to the practice of superior economies of time, prop¬ 
erty and money, so that he is able to give effect to these supe¬ 
rior sentiments in action, and can see around him some good 
he has done and is doing personally and by his own means— 
then only has he lifted himself into a higher plane of being 
and of duty, seem he ever so little and be he ever so lowly or 
obscure. 

Wherever earthquakes overwhelm, or tornadoes desolate, or 
floods destroy, or pestilence devours her myriads, leaving desti¬ 
tution, agony and grief behind them in their track, and all 
the little and grand agonies of life abide, they evoke in all the 
feeling of sympathetic pity. But it may be a mere selfish, 
self-indulgent, self-deceiving luxury, or it may prompt to heroic 
self-denial and practical beneficence, and it is only action that 
brings him into any real communion with the objects of his 
beneficence, or with other benefactors or beneficiaries of the 
world. Even then, unless there be some activity of his spirit¬ 
ual nature, the satisfaction realized from the best works, can be 
but cold and transient. He still may know and realizes none of 
the joys that are born only of a communion of spirits. His 


120 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


own spiritual nature being so dead or inert as to be doubted by 
himself, and the very existence of a spiritual world being de¬ 
nied by him, as it is denied by the materialist, he cannot com¬ 
mune with that which has for him no existence. The spiritual 
faculties of veneration, and wonder or faith in the supernatural 
or unseen, in unison with his reason, are the eyes by which 
spiritual things are known . 56 


THE RELIGIOUS FACULTIES OR INSTINCTS. 

Man alone, of all the animate creation, has the instinct that 
prompts him to wonder, inquire and worship . 57 

In all ages, and everywhere in our day mankind delight in 
the marvellous, and take pleasure in the contemplation and 
reverence of beings human, spiritual or divine, of real or im¬ 
aginary excellence or power, and are addicted to hero-worship 
or the worship of superior beings or tutelary deities. Whence 
spring these manifestations ? Why is this love of and inquiry 
into the wonderful implanted in the human heart, and by 
whom, and for what purpose ? Is there here no manifestation 
of design on the one hand, and of duty on the other? Have 
these instincts no higher or more exalted object than faith in 
ghosts, wraiths, pucks, fairies, hobgoblins, demons, necromancy, 
magic, astrology, fortune-telling, witches, and all the multiform 
brood of superstition and error, which have severally prevailed 
exceptionally or locally only ? Does not such an instinct in man 
rightly point alone or chiefly to the great Wonder-worker, 
whose wonderful works excelling all other device, beauty, 
grandeur, glory and marvellousness, everywhere surround 
man, and are ever before him from the tiniest moss to the 
myriads of orbs that gem the sky and constitute the universe— 
from the feeblest ephemera of an hour to majestic and wonder¬ 
ful man ? 

Why is the instinct of veneration implanted in the human 
heart ? Is it only to prompt reverence for any mere sublunary 
creature, for the beings of a century past or present, for the 
hero or victor of one or a hundred battle-fields who strews his 



THE RELIGIOUS FACULTIES OR INSTINCTS. 


121 


path to glory with myriads of corpses, or for the statesman, 
who, “a pompons and slow-moving pageant comes,” acute in intel¬ 
lect, but half a charlatan in his pretensions, exalted chiefly by acts 
that secure a multitude of venal followers who swell the chorus 
of his greatness ? Or is it only to deify stones, bulls, elephants, 
the sun, moon, skies, groves, streams or fetiches of various 
kinds, or even emperors like or better or worse than Persian 
Shahs, or Chinese children of the sun, or a Vitellius, or a 
Domitian, or a Nero, or his horse ? 

Nay—let any man but search his own soul, and he will 
find these twin instincts or faculties there, perverted it 
may be, the one prompting him to search for, inquire after and 
delight in the wonderful—the other leading him to reverence 
of some external greatness, power and majesty: and, in 
these respects, he does not differ from the men of any tradition¬ 
ary, any mythological or historic period. God has not left him¬ 
self without sure and imperishable witnesses in the human soul, 
however other instincts or depravities may have perverted his 
morals or debased his ideas of the most Wonderful! 

Both of these instincts, right reason alone must tell us, 
have a loftier ultimate object and aim—the Cause of causes 
and ultimate First cause, the Wonder of wonders, the Be¬ 
ing unconfined by space, without beginning or end, that inhab¬ 
ited infinity—the Divine Architect, whose inimitable and unap¬ 
proachable workmanship is seen in all things the grandest or 
most minute, who, in forming the human psychical constitution 
implanted these never-dying instincts and fitted them to inquire 
of, seek after, and glorify him. 

The spiritual faculties of veneration, and wonder or faith 
in the spiritual and unseen, in unison with man’s reason, are 
the eyes by which spiritual things are known. “Spiritual 
things,” says an apostle, “are spiritually discerned.” The man, 
whose spiritual nature is perverted or inert is naturally and 
honestly skeptical, perhaps professes skepticism as to spiritual 
beings, as to his own spirit and its immortality, as to the exist¬ 
ence of departed spirits, and as to any creative, constituting , 54 
ordering, law-giving, omnipresent, ever-working spirit. And 
yet perhaps, he will avoid passing a grave-yard at midnight, 
listen with a strange interest to stories of ghosts, fairies, haunted 


122 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


houses, demons and other superstitions, and palter with self- 
styled astrologers, necromancers and vulgar fortune-tellers. 
But he loses all the joys of a real communion with the spirits of 
those engaged or who have been engaged in like good works 
since the world began ; all the joys of a real spiritual com¬ 
munion with the saved of those whom he may have sought to 
succor—and greatest of all, the joys of a sweet, trusting and 
reverent communion with that beatific spirit, which knowing 
and constituting all things, is, ever saying by the still small voice 
in man, audible only to the spiritual sense, “Well done good 
and faithful servant, enter thou into the joys of thy Lord!” 

Alas ! To the Atheist or the sincere scoffer of the idea of 
a one spiritual, eternal, invisible God, creator and law-giver of 
all existing things and origin of all laws of existence, of right, 
and of duty ; and to the materialist, who believes not in man’s 
soul as a spiritual immaterial entity, living in and destined to 
live apart from this mortal perishing body, and to inhabit the 
spiritual body which, “though sown in corruption shall be raised 
in incorruption, and though sown a natural body, shall be raised 
a spiritual body, 5 ' there can be no joy but the joys of sense and 
of matter, the pomps and pageantries and glories, if he can 
attain them, of earth, and, if not attained, life can be but a 
toil, an empty void, a fleeting illusion, a pageant, a dark or 
gilded vapor that flitteth away, a vanity of vanities! But 
that there is a spiritual world is as clear to him, who has not 
despised and deadened his spiritual faculties and nature, as it 
is clear to the corporal senses that there is a visible and material 
world external to the soul of man : a fact once reasoned about 
and doubted by a skeptic philosophy. But some things are 
self-evident and axiomatic, and not matters for logic and proof, 
but of intuition. All facts, and all that man’s inner conscious¬ 
ness universally and in all ages discerns, are of this axiomatic 
character. When a false and skeptic philosophy can doubt, as 
it has doubted, the existence of matter that everywhere im¬ 
presses itself upon our senses, need we wonder that an opposite 
school of skeptics should despise or fritter away the evidence of 
their own consciousness : and, swinging to the opposite extreme 
of incredulity, doubt or deny their own spiritual existence and 
that of God, and of departed or other spirits that can impress 


THE RELIGIOUS FACULTIES OR INSTINCTS. 123 

themselves only on his own spirit, and deny also any world of 
spiritual being % 

If one could be born bereft of all the senses and faculties 
which take intuitive cognizance of the material external world, 
he would be no more capable of denying it, than that man is 
capable of denying a spiritual world who deadens his spiritual 
faculties and distrusts and sets aside the revelations of his inner 
consciousness: and he, who rejects a belief in his own wonder¬ 
ful spiritual being and its multiplied wonder-working endow¬ 
ments, can scarcely be expected to reason from nature up to 
nature’s God, or, on the authority of any revelation, to believe 
in the existence of one immaterial, invisible, spiritual, eternal 
and omnipresent God. But the latter requires, to minds 
rightly constituted, no other or different evidence than that on 
which the mass of men accept other beliefs, viz., the almost 
universal consent of mankind based on its own intuitions and 
on reason, through which God in all ages has prompted 
mankind to a belief however diverse, in his own soul and its 
immortality, and in a spirit, and his constant work everywhere 
implying his presence everywhere, that rules all things su¬ 
preme over all—atheism being, as exceptional and infrequent as 
blindness or deafness, paralysis or insanity—and there is no 
more fearful insanity than that of the atheist. The Assyrian, 
the Persian, the Greek and the Roman, the Scandinavian and 
the Saxon, the Sclavonic races, and the Aborigines of every 
clime and country, races the most ancient and modern, the 
most rude and the most civilized, however corrupted or refined, 
have alike recognized the existence of a spiritual state after 
death, and a great spiritual ruler of the universe, and no skepti¬ 
cism has been ever able to demonstrate or has really attempted 
to demonstrate the contrary and the utmost it has achieved is 
to substitute doubt for a living, moving, vigorous faith! And, 
who, but the spiritually blind or irrational, can really believe 
that man, with his wonderful powers and faculties is a mere 
momentary creation of some blind necessity of nature, some 
fortuitous link in the lawless progression of material entities, 
brought into successive being through centuries, merely to trifle 
away his powers and faculties in the pursuit of the evanescent 
pleasures, pomps, ambitions of terrestrial life, or endure its 


124 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


pains, griefs or penalties, and then utterly perish ? That all 
this wonderful part of him, that knows, and penetrates the 
arcana of nature, and brings to light its secrets and its hidden 
powers, that thinks unutterable thoughts, and thirsts without 
limit to know more and more, that soars above time and earth, 
that communes more or less perfectly with God, that takes 
cognizance of time and eternity, that dreams of perfection and 
bliss ineffable unknown on earth, is naught but a manifestation 
or modification of perishable matter, and a fountain of mere 
illusions of bliss, baseless and never to be realized, sacrificing 
the present and real for a worse than Circean enchantment of 
the hereafter ? How many, who think and know and reason at 
all and have in themselves a particle of the spirit of truthful¬ 
ness, can believe at all, that the great mass of men are made to 
be such universal victims of false illusions, that mock him all 
through life, and fail him utterly in the supreme hour of its 
termination ? It ought to be a sufficient answer to the material¬ 
ist that the functions of mind or affection or worship, by which 
alone we know what has been called soul, have nothing in 
common with any of the known distinctive attributes of mat¬ 
ter, and that his theory, not demonstrated and undemonstrable, 
contradicts all the known aspirations and universal belief of 
mankind. 

Assuming life to be spiritual and eternal, as well as physi¬ 
cal and terrestrial, and to have the range of duties, at which 
we have cursorily glanced, how grave, earnest and urgent are 
its requirements ! 58 What diligence does its brief span not exact 
of every man, if he would fit himself for the full discharge of 
its most common duties! Where is there time for idleness, 
idle words, inaction, vanity, frivolity, folly, vagaries, self-in¬ 
dulgence in mere sensuous pleasures or excesses, and sin? 
Turn where we may, look we in any direction, go where we 
will, everywhere duty stands in our way or beckons us to its 
not ungrateful toils, rewards and placid joys. Everywhere the 
Supreme worker and comforter is with us. 


CONSCIENCE, THE INSTINCT OF EIGHT, ETC. 


125 


CHAPTER XIX. 

CONSCIENCE, THE INSTINCT OF EIGHT AND JUSTICE-THE 

UNIYEESALITY OF DUTY. 

It is the office of conscience, to make men just, to cause 
them to recognize the law of justice as prescribed by the creator 
of rights, to find satisfaction in its obedience, and pain and re¬ 
morse in its violation. But the conscience, that really effectu¬ 
ates these purposes, must be enlightened by observation, expe¬ 
rience, study and reflection, or by revelation . 59 Hence the 
church is and must be the special instructor* of the poor and the 
unthinking, and Christ came and dwelt and taught among 
them. 

It does not demand merely the fulfillment of the common 
duties of paying one’s just debts and performing contracts and 
avoiding detraction. It requires of course that he, who is en¬ 
trusted with another’s goods on the belief of that other in his 
ability tp pay and his integrity, should justify that belief by 
returning that property or paying for it. It requires also that 
every man who enters into a contract should fulfill it, not only 
in the letter, but in its spirit and intent, and notwithstanding 
mistakes in its recording or defects in its statement of terms, or 
legal invalidity, unless that be due to its contracting for aught 
that is vicious or against public policy. For such a contract 
implies faith on the part of either contracting party, in the up¬ 
rightness and integrity of the other. Envy, jealousy, and mean 
and serpent-like malice or ambition may prompt the unscrupu¬ 
lous to scandalize another: but a right conscience, unperverted 
by passion or excessive selfishness, demands that we should ac¬ 
cord to every man, woman and child the exact credit and no 
more, that is due to them, just praise for their virtues and acquire¬ 
ments, and no extravagance of censure for his errors, faults 
and vices. 

But a just and right conscience demands far more than 
this. It requires that we should “render unto Csesar the things 


126 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


that are Caesar’s, and unto God, the things that are God’s 
that we should alienate from nor diminish from no man, nor 
from the divine being, any affection which either can rightly 
claim, nor lower any esteem which any have worthily won ; / 
nor impair any property which he has laboriously accumulated ; 
nor covet it, nor revulse, injure nor annoy any of his human 
instincts, appetites or affections , 60 but that we diligently respect 
all his feelings and sentiments to the same degree and in the 
like manner as we would have our own tenderly regarded, and 
that we love the giver of our being, faculties and all good, 
supremely; and our neighbor as ourselves. Selfishness is the 
opposite of all this and consists in the inordinate or exclusive 
action of the instincts and faculties for self, regardless of the 
equal rights of others. 

It is not proper* and right, that any one disregard, ridicule, 
offend, annoy, thwart or torture any appetite, instinct, desire, 
affection, emotion or passion of another, nor even his foibles, 
especially when that other is pursuing its right object, in right 
ways, and by right methods; nor is it right to depreciate him, 
his virtues, learning, attainments, character, intelligence or 
ability, to others, or even in our own minds. It is this broad 
view and full discharge of the duty of equal and exact justice 
to all, that constitutes not only a really moral and religious per¬ 
son, but really also a gentleman or lady of good or high breed¬ 
ing in every age, society or business. They really or formally, 
at least act, as if “in love preferring one another.” If the dis¬ 
charge of this duty mounts no higher than an abstinence from its 
opposite vice, it falls far short of its high mission. It must rise 
into active kindness, sympathy and respect, must express in just 
terms and by proper acts the due respect for all the human at¬ 
tributes of others, and award cheerfully the due praise to real 
virtue of every one, wherever found and on all fitting occasions. 
Man and his God-given nature, in despite of occasional foibles 
and errors, are to be respected positively, and not his mere in¬ 
cidents and accidents. Such expressions and action, whether 
simulated or real, are often miscalled flattery. They may be 
no more—when they are mere hollow artifices, insincere and a 
mere outward form of politeness, the word and the act alike are 
the vice of flattery—a mere vulgar and heartless imitation of a 


CONSCIENCE, THE INSTINCT OF RIGHT, ETC. 127 

genuine virtue. When honest, sincere and real, they are on the 
other hand exhibitions of a sterling virtue, and are not only 
encouraging and grateful to the recipient, but bring to their 
practitioner a deserved and lasting affection and popularity 
among his entire circle of acquaintance. And this gracious 
duty, amid the pressure of daily avocations, which it ought 
always to sweeten and exalt, is too generally neglected—except 
among the high-bred, where it is too generally a mere form of 
good breeding—to the loss of those who are guilty of this neg¬ 
ligence : for there is no shorter, surer, easier or more effective 
passage to the very heart of man or woman, and to fuse it with 
our own, than the mutual appreciation of intelligence, talents, 
affections, wisdom or virtues. There is no surer or shorter path 
to that condition of society, or that era of the world, in which 
mankind, instead of being indifferent to and hating one another, 
shall love each other with $ sincere, hearty and fervent affec¬ 
tion. The civil justice that metes out to offenders the penalties 
of prison, the axe or the gallows, the retaliation that exacts an 
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, can never be as 
efficient to reform mankind as the sentiment of justice, so acted 
upon in the daily, hourly practice in the business circle, the 
street, society and the home. Even the criminal of the deepest 
dye is not wholly perverted, but in some one or more of the 
elements only of our common human nature; and often his 
criminality is in a great degree born of folly or association only. 
Nothing is so potent to energize self-respect, as the respect of 
others; and nothing is so effective to arouse and evoke the bet¬ 
ter feelings of the most depraved natures, as the affection and 
benevolence of the good or of acknowledged superiors towards 
them. Such conduct, towards even the child, puts it at once 
on its good behavior. “Little children love one another”—but 
this love is the opposite of that spirit that contemns, upbraids, 
detracts or defiles another. Even to suspect unjustly is a wrong 
to another. To build up scandals from trivial indiscretions and 
imprudences, is a wrong alike to the scandal-monger’s own na¬ 
ture, and to his or her victim—to give them voice and utterance 
is a grosser and an irreparable wrong. And to defame public 
men is a wrong and injustice, not only to the man defamed, 
but to the public whom for the time he represents and serves. 


128 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


The spirit is that of Cain that utters forth the voice “Am I my 
brother’s keeper ?” Injustice of whatever kind, and however 
prompted or manifested, is the mother of envyings, jealousies, 
antagonisms, contentions, litigations and deadly feuds. It orig¬ 
inates the paraphernalia of governments. It disturbs the peace 
of states, over-loads court calendars, severs the bonds of family 
and friendship, and perpetuates discords where else there might 
be an Eden. It chills or breaks genial, loving hearts. It 
wrecks souls, bodies, homes and fortunes, and drives to despair 
and suicide often the purest and most sensitive natures. There 
is no fouler spirit abroad in any land, than this spirit of injus¬ 
tice and erring self-elevation by depreciation of others. There 
is no grander, nobler attribute of man or God, than his equal 
and exact justice to all. In its highest meaning and broadest 
scope, it is not only the grandest of human virtues, but also the 
most difficult in practice. Our self-esteem too often leads us to 
extravagant pride in our own virtuous sentimentalities or faults; 
and to either ignorance or misjudgment of the merits of others. 
The spirit of the Pharisee was not confined to the Jews nor to 
the Apostolic days; but has been, is, and may be co-evil with 
man, and thrives even in Christian lands and under the Chris¬ 
tian dispensation, which sternly reproves it: and he, who would 
be just, must first lay aside this spirit of assumed superiority as 
utterly incompatible with justice to others : and he, who is the 
slave of any one or more domineering passions, prejudices or 
selfishness in general, though he pay his every pecuniary debt 
promptly, can never be just in the best, highest and holiest' 
sense of the word. And so little has this spirit of justice, 
which is the soul of true humility, been understood or culti¬ 
vated, that it can still be said with truth in this nineteenth cen¬ 
tury of the Christian era, as it was said in its beginning, “There 
is none just but God.” 

But all can, at least, improve their hearts, and daily ap¬ 
proximate their conduct to the more constant and cheerful 
practice of this highest, noblest and most exalted of virtues. 

It is more than questionable whether the charity described, 
lauded and inculcated by the apostle in his epistle to the Cor¬ 
inthians is not this same attribute and practice of justice, rather 
than the offspring of benevolence. “Charity envieth not, char- 


CONSCIENCE, THE INSTINCT OF RIGHT, ETC. 


129 


ity vaunteth not itself, is not pnffed up, doth not behave itself 
unseemly, seeketh not its own, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not 
in iniquity.” And again he says, “Though I speak with the 
tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, 1 am be¬ 
come as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. And though I 
have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and 
knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove 
mountains and have not charity, I am nothing. And though 
I give all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my 
body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” 
And this charity cannot be mere gift-giving or beneficence or 
benevolence, but that justice which recognizes theoretically and 
practically the true equality and fraternity of all the children 
of the common infinite father, and conducts itself towards them 
as to co-equal brethren. 

“All axe not just, because they do uo wrong; 

But he who will not wrong me when he may— 

He is the only just, I praise not those 
Who, in their petty dealings, pilfer not; 

But him whose conscience spurns at secret fraud 
When he might plunder and defy surprise. 

His be the praise, who, looking down with scorn 
On the false judgments of the partial herd, 

Cbnsults his own clear heart, and boldly dares 
To be, not to be thought, an honest man!” 

Duties thus being founded in, and arising out of this very 
identical, like or equal constitution of man and his soul-nature, * 
and ordained of God in all man’s varied relations, man cannot 
exist anywhere, however isolated, connected or associated, with¬ 
out having resting upon him duties to discharge to himself and 
to the scenes and objects around him and associated with him, 
animate or inanimate. And the existence of conscience, 61 that 
ever-present monitor in the race, also indicates that man, in 
every clime and in every condition of barbarism or of civiliza¬ 
tion, is formed to learn, know and do the right; or, in other 
words, to be righteous. And in every clime and scene, and in 
every heart, even in solitude, there 

“Still whispers the small voice within, 

Heard through gain's silence or o'er glory's din, 

Whatever creed be taught or land be trod, 

Man’s conscience is the oracle of God.” 

I 


130 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


But a very fallible oracle, without careful thought, sound prin¬ 
ciple or divine illumination or revelation. But wherever man is, 
although in the midst of a solitude uninhabited by other men, 
there duty follows him—a duty to himself and the powers and 
faculties wherewith God has endowed him—a duty to the spot of 
earth in which lie lives and from which in one way or another he 
wrings his subsistence, a duty to all the things over which God 
gives him actual dominion or ownership, and a duty to God 
who giveth him the increase by his laws and conformity there¬ 
to and to his every good and perfect gift. Duty attends as 
well him whom God makes ‘‘ruler over a few things,” as him 
whom he makes “ruler over many things.” 

If he lives among his fellow men, the very contact and 
relationship to the community and its individuals, brings in 
new duties with every new relation formed in it. Whether 
learned or illiterate, civilized or savage, still conscience in all 
who have not deadened it— 

“The sly informer—minutes every fault 
And her dread diary with horror fills ” 

It is true that this conscience may be unenlightened, and 
thence awed by unreasoning or superstitious fears, or fears born 
of the erring teachings or impositions of men; or it may be in¬ 
tolerant, and through erring conclusions of duty and erring 
zeal, perpetrate horrors— 

“Christians have burned each other, quite persuaded 
That all the apostles would have done as they did.” 

And pagan nations have persecuted Christians, sacrificed 
children to imaginary deities, and others have immolated human 
victims at the shrines of their Gods, and even among the Jews 
erringly, like Jepthah, to the true God. But wherever con¬ 
science is, there it seeks to take cognizance through the intellect 
or revelation, of [the right, and prompts to do it; although 
human prejudice, or bias or self-partial judgment, or miscon¬ 
ception of revelation, may err as to what is right. 

Man can no more flee from duty, than he can flee from 
himself, his own conscience or from God. It pursues him and 
goes with him, wherever he goes, and no hour or moment flits 
by, which does not make its own proper demand upon him for 


CONSCIENCE, THE INSTINCT OF RIGHT, ETC. 131 

^discharge of some appropriate duty. Even when wearied with 
the toils and cares of the day of active labor, he lies down to 
rest and pleasant dreams, he but fulfills a duty—the duty of 
restoration and renovation for the work of the next busy day, 
and this duty no man or woman has a right to neglect for the 
sake of frivolous idle company, or vain dissipations or sensuous 
delights at home or abroad. In the city or town, on the sea or 
by the shore, on the mountain or in the vale, in the desert or on 
the fertile glebe, in the palace or in hovels, at home or abroad, 
on the highway or in marts of trade, in society or amid amuse¬ 
ments, in kirke or in cathedral, toiling or in repose, there is 
ever in all circumstances a heard or unheard summons to duty. 
Often these duties are imposed by urgent daily necessity, and 
are performed well or ill from habit, and mechanically and 
almost without thought of duty. Others of them do not press 
upon us so urgently, immediately and constantly; do not so un- 
intermittingly demand our attention ; and by many, their sum¬ 
mons may be unheard and unheeded until it is too late to heed 
them to advantage. The man or woman of largest intelligence, 
broadest right culture and most thorough discipline, hears the 
most distinct and constant summons to duty. Yet none are so 
situated, or can be, as to have no daily and hourly summons to 
a round of duties; and few are so situated as to be unable to 
know and enter in some form upon the wide realms of daily, 
hourly duty. This summons comes from every mart of trade, 
farm or garden, or office for business, from his or her own fire¬ 
side, and the hospitable homes of friends ; from every inanimate 
or living thing that is our own or entrusted to us ; from the 
loving, unexacting, gentle wife, or toiling husband and the 
helpless prattling children; from the couch of sickness or pain, 
from the bed of death and the broken hearts of the afflicted ; 
from alike those who rejoice, and from those who mourn; 
from the homes of the intemperate and the haunts of vice; 
from the prison cell and from the house of God; from the 
thronged and noisy street, and from the silent starry arch of the 
blue etherial dome. 

Unless a man can fly from himself or become annihilated, 
wherever he exists, his own psychical and physical organization 
and its relations or connections imposes upon him duties—each 


132 


VIA VINCENDI MORALIS. 


imposing the duty of at least so far understanding the powers* 
and functions of each, and their laws of rest, exercise and 
health, as to conform to such hygienic and moral laws as are 
essential to the conservation of their health, strength and har¬ 
monious action, and their just subordination to the dictates of 
conscience, which must reign over them. 

Every appetite, instinct, affection and passion brings sever¬ 
ally a psychical duty, that of learning their rightful sphere and 
limit, or even of sternly repressing them and each of them 
while and when circumstances demand their several repression, 
and of toiling honestly and skillfully for their reasonable right 
gratification. Every mental faculty brings to man an addi¬ 
tional duty, that of informing, nourishing and energizing it, 
and fitting it for its most correct, powerful, rapid, enduring 
and effective action. Every spiritual endowment—the instincts 
of reverence, of wonder or faith in the world of spirits and in 
the supernatural, and of communion with and worship* of the 
Deity—need and of right require a like informing and training. 
All these go with him everywhere, and the consequent duties 
abide with him in all stations and ranks of life, from the high¬ 
est to the lowest; as do also his moral faculties when he abides 
among and deals with his fellow men especially. And every 
property he owns, in solitude or in society, brings with it a 
duty of vigilance, order, place, care, preservation, repair, im¬ 
provement and profitable use; and the neglect of such duty, as 
it is a waste of material and labor, is a wrong to the toiler, to 
one’s self and family, and the world to which it is lost. The 
greater are a man’s endowments and properties, the wider be¬ 
comes the scope and gravity of his daily duties, and the heavier 
is the burden of his responsibility; and the glitter and pomp of 
equipage and palace and dependent servitors is attended by 
higher and more exacting studious toils, and a wider range of 
duties in private or public life, made urgent by the larger en¬ 
dowments. 

All these duties, his religious duties as taught by revela¬ 
tion perhaps excepted, are to be learned by his own conscious¬ 
ness and reason, and practiced by him as God-ordained. Their 
practice is never a matter of caprice or self-will, it is obligatory. 
To this end he has wider capacities of memory, reason and re- 


133 


CONSCIENCE, THE INSTINCT OF EIGHT, ETC. 

flection than all other beings. And to the extent that he 
must suffer for ignorant or willful violation of such duty, and 
be happy through its fulfillment, there is a fate or destiny by 
the obligatory law of man’s well being and well doing for every 
child of Adam— 

“The doom was written—the decree was passed 

E’re the foundations of the world were cast. ,, 

We cannot be the creatures and slaves of impulse, appetite 
and desire, save at the cost of imbrutement, depravity or ruin. 
We must be controllers and lords of all our lower and higher 
affections and faculties. A right will and conscience must 
reign over us and them, and say, as it may say effectively to 
each, “Thus far shalt thou go and no further.” Man is created 
not only lord of all things around him, but to be lord of him¬ 
self under and in accordance with the divine laws of his consti¬ 
tution. “Greater is he that ruleth his own spirit than he that 
taketh a city.” He is a king regnant, even though he have no 
subject other than his own lower or more terrestrial or animal 
appetites, affections and instincts. He must wear the crown of 
righteousness, or clank the chains of bondage to his own baser 
or animal nature. He can choose freely the lower and easier 
and descending ways, or the arduous upward way; but his 
choice means spiritual elevation and life, or moral debasement 
and spiritual death. He never stands still, however idle, any 
more than time can stand still. When he is not advancing 
heavenward in duty’s path, he is retrograding along the paths 
of brutishness, sin and fathomless sloughs of perdition or de¬ 
basement. How endless may be his progression towards the in¬ 
finite wisdom and perfection, or into what unfathomed depth 
of perdition and corruption he may sink down deeper and 
deeper, the infinite wisdom only knows. 

Ars longa , vita brevis est. “Life is brief and time is fleet¬ 
ing.” The few years of life, seen in the retrospect, seem but as 
an evanescent dream, so swift has been their flight, but who 
can measure the immensity of eternity, or the enduring in¬ 
fluence of this life upon it for man or woman ? Who, that has 
reason, can squander the immensurable in exchange for the so- 
called pleasures of time—the crown of immortal glory for tran¬ 
sient power on earth—the life and light that shall “brighten 


134 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


more and more unto the perfect day,” for the sensuous luxuries 
and extravagances and the paltry splendors of the most pomp¬ 
ous courts or circles of sublunary years ? 

“We fall—we rise—we reign— 

Spring from our fetters, fasten to the skies !” 

Be such the work, the hope, the faith and destiny of each 
earnest, zealous and faithful student of this little work : and 
such destiny assuredly will be his, in whom conscience rightly 
assumes its just supremacy over all his feelings, thoughts and 
deeds at home and abroad, in society and in business, in public 
or in seclusion, in the home and in the church. 


CHAPTER XX. 

THE PROPENSITIES, INSTINCTS OR AFFECTIONS, ANIMAL OR MORAL, 
HAVE RIGHT SPECIAL FUNCTIONS, LAWS AND LIMITS. 

God only being infinite, all else is finite- and limited. 
Whatever is created or constituted is limited by the law of its 
constitution or creation. Every propensity, instinct, affection, 
animal or moral, has its rightful, lawful God-ordained sphere 
and object. Activity within these is virtue, beyond them or in 
their perversion is vice. Each has not only its right function, 
sphere and object, but its right mode and way of pursuit of its 
legitimate object or its erring and criminal modes and paths. 
It is the vainest and idlest of dreams to imagine, that, while all 
other created things have their laws and limitations, man’s soul- 
nature, his appetites, instincts, affections, desires, passions, aspi¬ 
rations or even his higher and nobler faculties alone are bound¬ 
less, lawless or infinite. Except the one infinite, all-creative 
power, naught else can really be, subsist or endure, except by 
the law and within the law of its creation. That it is created, 
implies a law of its function and constitution. Every propen¬ 
sity, appetite, instinct, faculty, affection has, like his corporal 
organs, its office, law of health, development and power, or of 
enfeeblement, debasement, perversion and disease, or through 



THE PROPENSITIES, INSTINCTS OR AFFECTIONS, ETC. 135 

its undue indulgence and inordinate training, may acquire the 
power of final mastery and dominion over the whole man. 
Every power or faculty of mind and every moral or spiritual 
power also becomes enfeebled by non-use, or perverted by 
misuse, or strengthened by due and normal regulated exercise, 
or dominant by undue continuous exclusive exercise, if such in¬ 
ordinate exercise do not utterly disease or ruin it. And as he 
neglects and silences, or trains and invigorates practically the 
conscience, it sinks into inanition, or rises into rightful suprem¬ 
acy over all other affections or powers, and rules the whole man 
and his every act having reference to earth, as it ought to do. 
As conscience, benevolence and the spiritual instincts become 
enfeebled and inert, man sinks from his high estate and normal 
sphere, loses the image of God in which he was created, ceases 
to be only “a little lower than the angels,” and sinks into de¬ 
pravity, more or less complete or profound, approximating to 
brutishness. But if highly endowed with intellect and ideality, 
that depravity may nevertheless be a rottenness that shines amid 
the surrounding darkness like the phosphorescent light emitted 
by decaying substances, or the ignis fatuus of the marsh; or 
otherwise it may be attended with such palpable putridity and 
moral stench as to disgust all who fall within its influence. The 
latter is the most abhorred, and yet it may be the less danger¬ 
ous, because it is the less attractive form of depravity. 

But the essential function of conscience is to prompt to a 
knowledge and practice of such limitations as are by God’s 
law of right and duty imposed upon every other propensity or 
affection. It says in the language of the stern prophet of Israel 
to Saul, to every man, “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice.” 
Obedience to the divine laws of nature and of duty is better 
than repentance for their violation. To not to do wrong is bet¬ 
ter than reparation, which can seldom be complete. And it 
ought to require no argument to prove that the violation of 
any limiting law of appetite or affection, or of his intellectual, 
moral or spiritual faculties, can have no less pernicious effect 
upon his soul or spirit, than the violation of the laws of his 
material organization is known to have upon its health and 
life. And hence every human soul should realize that, although 
in their self-conceit “fools may rush in where angels fear to 


136 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


tread,” and may proclaim that there is no God and no divine 
law, no soul can be safer in such incredulity, nor in defying the 
moral laws of God and living in contempt of them, than the r 
idiot or madman would be who defied the law of gravitation 
and planted himself in the path of the swift-descending land¬ 
slide or of the careering rock. 

Hence there must be for every child or man an education 
broader and higher than that of our common schools of to-day, 
which teach and assume to teach only the cheap rudiments of 
letters, and teach really nothing of the faculties of man, their 
nature and laws, or his duty : although those schools do inform 
and discipline some few of his mental faculties to some extent, 
and, in the lessons read, in some degree implant moral ideas. 
But, unless the church, the Sunday school and the home and its 
hourly practices shall fully supply the need of moral and spirit¬ 
ual instruction and training, the stability of society and the true 
progress of man must demand its teaching in the common 
schools or in special schools for that purpose. 

But even the moral and spiritual instincts may run into 
error or excess. And when they debar from innocent, elevat¬ 
ing or refining amusements in safe places, them who have 
wearied themselves with the toils of the day; or when they 
create the bigot, who, not content to practice morals or religion 
according to his own convictions of duty, seeks to force his own 
rule of right and duty and his creed upon another against his 
convictions, as though his rule was the infallible one; or when, 
not content to sit in judgment on his own acts in his own 
known circumstances, he presumes to sit in judgment upon the 
acts and lives of others not plainly vicious, he does carry his 
conscientiousness or his faith beyond its due limits. “Judge 
not that ye be not judged.” Form no judgments for others 
whose circumstances and surroundings are not fully known, ex¬ 
cept upon their own revelation and solicitation. 


PLEASURE, PAIN, GRIEF, ETC. 


137 


CHAPTER XXL 

PLEASURE, PAIN, GRIEF AND MENTAL AGONY DEPEND ON OBEDI¬ 
ENCE TO LAW, OR ITS VIOLATION-THE BENEFICENCE OF GOD. 

Every propensity, instinct, affection, passion and intellect¬ 
ual, moral or spiritual faculty of man thus has its proper func¬ 
tion and objects, and prompts to their pursuit and attainment. 
In the varied pursuit of these terrestrial and corporal objects, 
and in the activities consequent upon that pursuit and in the 
right and limited enjoyment of those objects, when attained, 
consist the chief pleasures of our earthly existence, so far as 
those pleasures are not purely intellectual, moral or spiritual. 
The latter are the highest and most exalted pleasures of men of 
great or greatly trained mental, moral and spiritual endow¬ 
ments and culture; but not even their only pleasures, save 
when they become too exclusive. For man is born for earth as 
well as heaven. The child and the man differ in their activi¬ 
ties chiefly in the fact, that one may not have, and the other 
ever ought to have consciously some rational object and aim. 
Man may try, but he cannot successfully try to, and ought 
not to endeavor to eliminate any propensity, affection, instinct, 
moral or spiritual power or faculty of his nature. If he 
could, as he cannot, eliminate any one of them or any class of 
them, he could only dismember his psychical form and extin¬ 
guish his capacity for one kind or one class of pleasures and 
diminish to that extent his incentives to activity and his enjoy¬ 
ment of happiness. It is his duty to guide and govern them 
only, in subordination to the divine law, and within their proper 
sphere and bounds. All these pleasures and their right and mod¬ 
erate pursuit and enjoyment are proper sources and muniments 
of man’s earthly felicity; but not to the exclusion of the higher 
purposes and pleasures of our existence. And the very diver¬ 
sity of man’s nature and the multitude of his instincts, affec¬ 
tions and passions, each of which in its reasonable and just ex¬ 
ercise, can be the source only of pleasure, is the highest proof 


138 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


of the beneficence of the author of man’s wonderful nature, by 
whom they were implanted—the great eternal and infinite 
Wonder and Wonder-worker. But, to every instinct, propensity 
and affection, as to the seas and floods, and plains and moun¬ 
tains, God has alloted its due course and bounds. When each 
courses controlled within them, it is safe and beneficent, and 
the verdure and flowers and fragrance of the soul-life bloom 
along its borders. Transcending these allotted bounds, like the 
floods, or heaving and sinking from them like the earthquake- 
shaken plain or mount, each may become sublime in grandeur 
or wreck, but is only a desolater or anniliilator of all beauty, 
verdure or happiness in the soul and life. And yet all these 
multiplied sources of pleasure or each of them, becoming per¬ 
verted, inordinate or ungoverned, and wayward, may become 
severally or jointly the source of the most exquisite pain, en¬ 
during anguish, ruin and wreck, and it is a law of the Creator 
that they do so become when man or woman aspires to aught 
that is to their capacities and culture unattainable, or too impa¬ 
tiently or idly aspires to that which may be attained by right 
effort or pursues it in erring modes by which it cannot be at¬ 
tained, or indulges himself or herself with the object when at¬ 
tained wrongly or excessively. In other words, in order that 
even man’s best affections may be and continue to be sources of 
happiness only, and not of woe, it is the imperative law of God 
that man should, through trained diligence and right quest, pur¬ 
sue all lawful objects of desire, and that God and his universal 
law of function, limitation, moderation and righteousness or 
duty should reign supreme over him and all his desires, aspira¬ 
tions, pursuits and enjoyments : and that so only can any or all 
of his affections, appetites or pursuits be to him or her, a peren¬ 
nial source of pleasure, and earth itself be again to him an 
ever-blooming and blissful paradise. 

Every source of pleasure may therefore be a source of cor¬ 
relative pain, but it becomes the latter only when it asserts 
supremacy as an idol of the soul, dethroning God and rebelling 
consciously or unco&sciously against his law of growth and at¬ 
tainment, and rendering us insubordinate to his will as em¬ 
bodied in the laws of man’s constitution, existence and progress, 
and of the creation around him. And the farmer, the mer- 


139 


PLEASURE, PAIN, GRIEF, ETC. 

chant, the mechanic, the professional man, who is, in fact, de¬ 
voted to aught else more than to diligence and the attainment 
of the due skill in his avocation, may complain of poverty and 
failures in vain. But the pleasures of action and pursuit, and 
of rational enjoyment, are as constant and continuous as life it¬ 
self ; while the pain of failure or perverse pursuit and wrong 
indulgence seldom become lasting, unless the wrong-pursuing 
and wrong-doing become so continuous and protracted, and 
what we suffer, is suffered through and by means of our own 
continuous ignorance of our own nature and its law, or wrong 
seeking and doing only, and is its penalty. 

Nor can there be effective law without its sanction and 
penalty. But throughout creation, there must be law—to 
every constituted thing the law of its creation and constitution, 
without this, all is anarchy, ignorance and confusion. And, in 
order that law may become known to man as law, it must be as 
constant and unvarying in its operation as the rising and set¬ 
ting of the sun, or otherwise man must remain ignorant and 
uncertain of its reality. True benevolence in the Creator, as 
well as jr^tice, equally demands that he govern by law, and he 
ordinarily so governs intelligent beings and all things that can 
affect them, by law, and not by caprice or miracle. Hence 
miracles must be and have been exceptional, and generally 
confined to an age of special revelation: but law has been con¬ 
stant and universal at all other times. And hence only the 
prayer of that faith, that energizes to right effort, and says, “Thy 
will be done,” can really expect a favorable answer from God. 

And, from the identity of the elementary constitution of 
the physical jyid the psychical or soul-nature of every man or 
woman with that of others, it follows that there cannot be one 
law of justice or of the highest felicity and progression for one 
race or individual of mankind, and another law for others—for 
all, being endowed with like elementary faculties, really demand 
like training and are amenable to the same laws of their consti¬ 
tution at all ages, and none can impede the equal right of 
pursuit and advancement of another. But this progress or 
retrogression of races may nevertheless be very diverse, accord¬ 
ing to the difference in each, of the degrees of depravity, or of 
mental, moral and spiritual power, and their force or feebleness 


140 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


of intelligence or understanding. Neither is progress a. neces¬ 
sary result of the condition of any people or race; for, it may 
steadily debase itself until it is blotted out of existence, from 
its own unfitness for its merely terrestrial functions. And 
hence, in dark ages and dawns of new eras, the most important 
truths, that might not in their abstract statements or formulas 
be comprehended, are made plain and effectively taught by 
parables like that of the faithful and unfaithful or indolent ser¬ 
vants entrusted with their master’s talents, teaching the dili¬ 
gent and right employment of God-given affection, faculties, 
opportunities or talents. And hence, too, the parable of the 
forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, 
taught in the past and in the world’s darkest ages, as it teaches 
now, that man through obedience to the laws of his being was 
destined only to felicity; that God has given to man his law of 
sphere and limitation inherent in his nature; that disobedience 
of that law depraves and is sin, that banishes from happiness 
and the earthly and heavenly Eden ; and that man’s restoration 
to his primal state of felicity must come through a living faith 
in God and his laws imposed upon man and imbedded in his 
very nature and from obedience thereto, God helping him by 
means of institutions, sacrifices and sacraments designed for 
that end. 

But the multiplicity of man’s appetites, instincts and affec¬ 
tions not only opens up to him manifold sources of innocent 
pleasures in their just action, but declares him to be designed 
for and tends to move him to the most incessant and vigorous 
and varied activities. Each is a motive force, and each prompts 
to pursuit and action, right or wrong, according to the intelli¬ 
gence and conscience of the actor, unless either is permitted to 
fall into the half or perverse activity of mere sentimentalism. 
And their right activity, as motive powers, is never to be sup¬ 
pressed or extinguished; but, like the action of other motors 
in the external world, to be quickened, guided and regulated, 
and such is the proper object of all human laws. All motives 
implanted by God, that is to say, the instincts and affections in 
their normal action—are right motives, and each adds force, 
power and persistence to action ; and the man or woman, who 
is moved by all, cannot fail to act more efficiently, indefatigably, 


141 


PLEASURE, PAIN, GRIEF, ETC. 

cheerfully, and if he or she be wise at all, more wisely than he 
can, who is moved only by even the highest or so-called best or 
most disinterested emotions. The man, who is or can be im¬ 
pelled only by a sense of duty, even if such man there be, may 
be the best of men in theory, but he cannot be the most vigor¬ 
ous, active or powerful, if he succeed in suppressing or render¬ 
ing inert all the other motives of love for himself, his wife, his 
family, ambition or love of the beautiful and grand, or of the 
approbation of his fellow-men. We need therefore, not to 
weaken or eliminate any motive of our nature, nor to be 
ashamed of any of them, but to guide, direct, purify and sub¬ 
ordinate those which concern self alone to the command of 
right, of duty and of God; and, at the same time, invite the ac¬ 
tivity and energy of all. And this seems to be our duty—a 
duty tending in its discharge to the promotion of the highest 
happinesss of ourselves and of others, of which we or they are 
capable, on earth. 

But revulsion, grief and mental agony attend, in a degree, 
upon the hopelessness of attainment, or upon a loss, however 
incurred or produced, of any of the objects of man’s appetites, 
affections or instincts, high or low, and upon inordinate self- 
will in their impatient pursuit; and, they are the opposite of 
the joy or pleasure which arises from a hopeful or resigned and 
regulated pursuit, or a successful and moderate enjoyment of 
their objects. And the more intense and imperious the desire 
is, the more intense and beyond mitigation will be the pleasure 
of hope and attainment, or the pain and agony of despair or 
loss. The bitter and the sweet thus border the whole course of 
our lives, and he only can gather its sweets, who, not only de¬ 
sires them, but makes himself most capable and therefore most 
worthy, of their attainment and preservation; and he only 
makes himself most miserable, who murmurs and rebels against 
and ignores the law of his own present actual condition and of 
his gradual and progressive pursuit and attainment, or any 
other of the just and necessary laws of his Creator, by and 
through conformity and obedience to which only any pursuit 
can be crowned with success, attainment and happiness. 

The existence of an appetite, instinct, propensity, affection 
or faculty, declares a correlative right and duty of pursuing, 


I 


142 VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 

attaining and enjoying its just object by all right means; and 
the individual or society, that, by artificial conditions, impedi¬ 
ments or laws, strives to thwart another’s just pursuit or due 
attainment or enjoyment by right means, and within proper 
limits of any of the good things which nature prompts him to 
seek, commits a wrong against that other, and his God and 
Creator. Every employer, on the other hand, owes a positive 
duty to the employed, to so compensate him for any labor of 
any kind as the matter in hand will afiord, so that his range of 
right and just use and enjoyment of necessaries be not unduly 
restricted. Man cannot live virtuously only to eat, drink, 
clothe himself and die. He, who cannot so manage a business 
as to be able to afiord such reasonable compensation for capital 
used as it ought to receive, and such reasonable compensation to 
his competent and faithful servants in it as will enable each 
with proper economy to marry, get a decent home and main¬ 
tain a family respectably and give proper education* to his 
children, is unfit to be an employer in that business, and will 
drop out of it or must improve his practice ; or his business is not 
one fit to be followed in the way, place or community in which 
he follows it. 

Enduring grief or pain is not a necessary concomitant of 
any affection, but it is especially attendant upon inordinate and 
ungoverned, and ungovernable master appetites, instincts and 
faculties, which desire beyond the trained or skilled power of 
the will to rightly pursue or attain or retain them, or of some 
great irrevocable and irremediable crime prompted by them, or 
of the indolence which enfeebled instead of energizing and in¬ 
forming capabilities. He, who realizes that law exists for his 
own good, if he will learn and obey it, and for the general 
good, and is wise, can, whatever happens, find some happiness, 
in that thought, even when it or its violation brings affliction or 
reverse on himself or his loved ones; and he will seek humbly 
to learn all the laws of God, that he may avert like or other calami¬ 
ties. But as few train themselves to such philosophies or such 
studies, or appreciate those who do—but rather the bastard 
smartness of unscrupulous cunning, artifice and fraud—griefs 
and pains, as well as pleasures, must be as various as men’s 
dominant or domineering desires, pursuits, disappointments, de- 


143 


PLEASURE, PAIN, GRIEF, ETC. 

feats, errors, evil associations, and ignorant or willful violations 
of God’s laws in that universe in which he lives and which can 
affect him. All these causes, and especially the lack of will to 
get skill and knowledge, or to work with mind and body to 
attain or keep the object of desire, or the existence of surround¬ 
ing circumstances and conditions created by human error, or sin 
or crime, which may actually forbid attainment or retention, 
may singly or together, lead in grief or pain. God is not the 
author of either grief or pain, except as He permits that they 
exist under, and perhaps, through the operations of His own 
wise and beneficent law and man’s default of obedience, and 
the necessary penalty of its violations. Man is placed in a 
world, where, if he duly improves and informs his faculties, and 
is really properly skilled to labor in any of the ordinary avoca¬ 
tions of life, it is not difficult for him to gratify any of the well 
ordered desires; and, it is his duty to restrain them within the 
bounds of his capabilities and the conditions around him, and 
that of his chosen business, and therewith to be content. And 
contentment and resignation to God’s wise will, as unfolded in 
and taught through his wise laws, are sources of happiness, 
even in the most adverse circumstances. Men receive here, 
not all earthly good necessarily, but the rewards appropriate to 
their own and their family’s worldly skill, studies and diligence, 
save as these are interfered with, or lost by bad business rela¬ 
tions and associations, or the frauds, crimes, or follies of him¬ 
self or others his intimates. But the miseries that spring from 
bad associations, admit of no remedy except the reformation 
of the associate, or severance of the association. Every un¬ 
worldly virtue brings a satisfaction and a reward appropriate 
to it, although it may not always bring worldly gain. So the 
love for wife or children, increases burdens ; but it leads in joys 
and comforts unknown to the wifeless and childless man, and 
sweetens days with a constancy and fervor of affection towards 
each other unknown in any other relation of life; and who 
would shrink from that endearing God-ordained relation or its 
burdens, because he knows that time, sooner or later, must sever 
it in pain and anguish ? So it is with all our joys, griefs and 
pains. The latter are, as it were, temporary and evanescent 
when weighed against the daily and constant, but perhaps less 


144 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


noticed joys, born even of the instincts and desires that have 
special reference to man’s terrestrial dwelling place or that at¬ 
tend even their pursuit. All desires that bring a pleasure 
in their hopeful pursuit or enjoyment, cannot but have a cor¬ 
relative pain from their non-achievement or loss. All affection 
which twines around earthly objects and earth’s fleeting scenes, 
cannot but have their corresponding grief or sorrow, when the 
clasping tendrils of affection are broken by the removal of the 
entwined object. But the God who has given us all these 
numerous sources of earthly and heavenly joys, is not less good 
and just, and benevolent, because He has not, so far as earth is 
concerned, made them each and all, unfading and eternal. 
Were man, or aught that is, or can be his, eternal here, earth 
would soon be too populous to sustain its myriads; and man’s 
generations could not be successive through the far centuries ; 
or, if successive, would soon fail to wring from the over-crowded 
earth a subsistence, and soon begin to live in hopeless penury, 
without the relief even of the kindly hand of death, and with¬ 
out the consoling hope of a blessed hereafter. 

And they, who are fitted by great capacities and heroic 
virtues to adorn the annals of time, cannot expect always great 
occasions during their lives to call them forth, but must con¬ 
tent themselves with applying them uncomplainingly in ordi¬ 
nary times, to some of the common and useful pursuits of life. 
Occasions do not always exist to bring out a Cincinnatus from 
his plough, nor restrain a Cromwell from self-inflicted exile, nor 
bring Napoleons from their rocky isles, to shake down thrones 
and to become a terror of kingdoms, nor to bring barbarian Atti- 
las to scourge the civilized world, nor to take Grants from the 
humble duties of a tannery or a farm, to end triumphantly a suici¬ 
dal civil war, nor lead Washingtons from a surveyor’s tools and 
plantations, to win the Independence of a great country, estab¬ 
lish its institutions and achieve the honorable title of “The 
Father of His Country.” And of many a lowly cemetery, it is 
and ever will be true, that 

“ Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid, 

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire— 

Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, 

Or waked to ecstacy the living lyre.” 


145 


THE DUTY OF PRACTICE, ETC. 

For all who have leisure and opportunity, it is a duty, 
while they neglect not the ordinary avocations of life, to fit 
themselves for life’s noblest opportunities and most heroic, sub¬ 
lime and beneficent deeds, and then patiently abide their time. 

And so, even in the midst of sorrows and disappointments, 
the intelligent moralist or devout Christian, may reverently and 
even contentedly say to the All-wise, “Thy will, not mine, be 
done.” “The Lord givetli and the Lord taketh away. Blessed 
be the name of the Lord!” 

"Oh, thou who dryest the mourner’s tear, 

How dark this world would be, 

If when deceived and wounded here, 

We could not fly to Thee!” 


CHAPTEK XXII. 

THE DUTY OF PRACTICE AND DISCIPLINE OF FACULTY 
AND AFFECTION. 

It is self-evident, that the duty of the study of man’s 
faculties, appetites and instincts, or propensities, or spiritual 
powers and their just sphere, laws and temptations is one thing, and 
that of their actual training and discipline, in fact and deed, to 
supremacy or subjection, is another, and that both right practice 
and right discipline must be specialties, as now are the study 
and practice of the several material natural sciences relating to 
matter, which are far less intricate and difficult. In the study and 
practice of metaphysics however, there is this great advantage, 
that every man has acting, living and dwelling within himself, 
the things to be studied and learned, and by the vigilant exercise 
of his own consciousness he can learn much about them, and 
can test their existence and any alleged laws of their action, and 
can exercise discipline and practice them by their proper work 
or abstinence therefrom, and energize or restrain them as exi¬ 
gencies and his relations and duty may require. And the active, 
sagacious and aspiring youth or adult, has thus always a work 
within himself, and for himself, that he can always do and can 

J 



146 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


make some ruder or more exact progress in, besides studying by * 
comparison the characters around him, whether he be rich or 
poor, and without money and without price. And this work is 
in every sphere or era of life, self-education; and there are now, 
and doubtless will be, as there have been in all ages, compara¬ 
tively unlettered men and women, who, having enjoyed few of 
the advantages of even the common schools, through their own 
studies of mankind and the practical exercise of their intelli¬ 
gence in their customary business, and in their moral and re¬ 
ligious exercises and practice, stand not unfrequently in opulence 
and moral stature, above the scholastic theorists who have studied 
without digesting or reducing to practice, the learning of the 
schools and the university. And these, are not the merely 
wealthy, but, under God, truly the self-made men and women. 

A large part of mankind, when informed at all as to their 
moral, intellectual, spiritual or aflectional nature, are almost 
wholly so educated by their own intuitions and by their obser¬ 
vations and experience of others, or by the law of the land 
which compels abstinence from certain legal crimes, conjoined 
in some cases with the teachings of the church, the bible, and 
the Sunday school. And this self-education goes on practically 
during every waking hour of business activity, or reflection, 
and in every haunt of folly or vice, as well as at the happy fire¬ 
side, and in the consecrated temples of God, and in all man’s 
silent and solitary communings with his own spirit, or with the 
spirit of the universe. But is it any wiser to leave the affec- 
tional, moral, spiritual and religious nature, without chart or 
compass, to this self-training and to the consciousness or intuitions 
of his own spiritual m ovements and to the often erring conclusions 
of his own unenlightened reason, than it would be to leave his 
intellectual faculties and business training to be wholly wrought 
out by the unaided youth, or man or woman ? 

The church alone, except the family and its associations, con¬ 
duct and worship, trains and exercises the spiritual nature and 
elevates it into communion with God. And also, as to the moral 
nature and faculty of man or child, there is no early school of 
practice and training, save the home, and later, society and 
business. What then can those parents hope for as to their 
children, who, whatever be their own creed or morals, bring them 


THE DUTY OF PRACTICE, ETC. 


147 


into no constant discharge of all mutual moral duties and offices at 
home, and into no communion with any church, and into no wor¬ 
ship of, or communion with God at home ? And how great and 
manifest is their error and wrong, who seek by simple repression or 
the bribery of reward, or the cowardly terror of punishment only, 
to train them even into right ways, without any rational teach¬ 
ing, either at their home or elsewhere, of the principles and 
wide sphere of duty, and without constant, positive practice of 
and in them; and who perhaps even teach lessons of deceit, 
fraud or falsehood, or other ill-conduct, or daily set examples of 
either before their children, in their own persons, by language or 
act? With even the best discipline of the intellectual faculties, 
but without moral and religious culture, what can the future 
man or woman, be expected to grow into, except a moral mon¬ 
ster, influenced only by hope of reward or fear of punishment, 
devoted to self, and great only, if great at all, in physical or 
intellectual force, exerted only in purely selfish pursuits and at¬ 
tainments, worshiping and revering naught but himself, or those 
whom he fears, or from whom he expects reward, and through 
life, from the cradle to the grave, the complete slave of some 
selfish ruling passion or venality ? 

This age of wonderful progress in all the sciences and ap¬ 
pliances of material things, ought to demand for man’s rising 
generations, and to institute a broader and more philosophical 
and exact knowledge of man’s elementary, moral and spiritual 
nature, and a more thorough and exact scientific, continuous, 
systematic discipline of his moral faculty, and the elaboration 
and application of broader and wiser study, and more exact 
yules of discipline and of morals, to his every instinct and 
faculty! 

The universal church of all the Christian creeds is, and has 
been for centuries, doing for all who come within its influence, 
all that perhaps can be done, without more human aid, for the 
spiritual nature of man and its regeneration, and much for the 
moral. But, if a millenial period is ever to visit the earth, 
when all shall sit secure from alarm and aggression a under their 
own vine and fig tree,” and when “there shall be none to hurt 
or destroy in all God’s kingdom” upon earth, it can only come 
from such a culture and education as disciplines, informs, forti- 


14-8 


VIA VINCENDI MORALIS. 


lies, and yet restrains every power and faculty of man’s moral 
and spiritual nature, so as to substitute a lofty and correct sense 
and principle of duty for the base and more corrupting motives 
of hope, favor and self-indulgence or self-seeking; and all this 
must come, if at all, from home vigilance and practice, a wider 
and more powerful support of the church, institutions and 
other special schools of moral philosophy. 

In addition to education of the intellect or in moral science, 
there must be also a constant practice of that morality, the for¬ 
mer to enlighten the intellect—the latter to discipline and en¬ 
ergize the moral faculty by its constant exercise. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

KINDRED VICES AND VIRTUES. 

Every elementary instinct, propensity, affection, and even 
the mental faculties and moral and religious instincts of man, 
being alike liable to error and excess, and so acting excessively 
and out of their beneficent function, to operate each its respec¬ 
tive vice, it is clear that each virtue must have its kindred or con¬ 
verse vice, distinguished only by a narrow and often delicate 
line of demarkation, discernible to considerate minds only, and 
varied often by circumstances, condition, object, or the union of 
other motives, or its singleness of motive. Virtue, in the sense 
of the author, may be defined to be, the action of and the action 
moved by any single instinct of man in its normal sphere, 
to or for its God-ordained ends, and within the limits of justice 
to one’s self and benevolence and justice to all others. Senti¬ 
mentality even may be virtuous or vicious; but real effective 
virtue consists in right actions prompted and performed. Vice 
on the other hand is a like desire, and action prompted by any 
faculty, instinct or affection beyond its just sphere and God- 
ordained limit, injurious to one’s self or one’s own, or unjust 
to other individuals or the public. The vices more commonly 
result from the combined or united action of two or more fac¬ 
ulties or instincts or from simple excess or perversion of one. 



KINDRED VICES AND VIRTUES. 


149 


Thus two persons may be equally just or equally benevo¬ 
lent in disposition and equally cognizant of the principle, that 
every one is bound to deal justly with another, and each may 
have families equally large and know equally well the duties of 
supporting and educating them; but one has an income from a 
fixed or growing business or an acquired fortune of millions, 
while the other has but a thousand dollars in hand, debts enough 
to require the whole thousand in paying them, and is earning a 
narrow stipend, which is but a precarious support for his family. 
The gift or expenditure of a thousand dollars by each, to the 
recipients, and to persons not cognizant of their respective cir¬ 
cumstances, would seem to be equally virtuous; and to the 
thoughtless, who were cognizant of the circumstances of each, 
the gift of the latter would seem to be by far the most meritorious 
and disinterested. But in reality, it would be the virtue of per¬ 
haps a stinted generosity in the first donor, and the vices of prod¬ 
igality or profusion, injustice and improvidence in the latter, 
and its necessary sequence must be injustice and wrongful sac¬ 
rifice of duty to his creditors, or to his family, or both; the for 
mer being unduly constrained by the same greed of accumula¬ 
tion which laid the foundations of his fortune, and the latter 
impelled not by benevolence only, but by an overmastering 
pride, or love of applause, or both. 

Again, marriage is a virtuous and holy institution. Ordi¬ 
narily, they who marry do a virtuous act and live virtuously, 
and assure their virtuous living, at least as to the temptations 
and sins of one lust. But if either of them have the heredi¬ 
tary taints of insanity, epilepsy, scrofula, cancer, gout, or other 
disease, pauperism or crime in their nature and constitution, 
however acquired, to be transmitted to a guiltless posterity; 
or, if either have wrecked body, mind or morals, by licen¬ 
tious or luxurious indulgences so as to be incapable of transmit¬ 
ting sound bodily, mental or moral constitutions to yet unborn 
offspring; or if they have hitherto lived a life so incapable or 
prodigal as to have neither stable and skilled occupation, nor 
home, nor reliable means of subsistence for a little or growing 
family, the same act and fact of marriage ceases to be a virtue, 
and becomes a wrong, with fhr reaching effects. The desire of 
marrying is inherent like every other desire, and it early manifests 


150 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


itself, and is right as such; but, when it does not prompt intel¬ 
ligent men and women to duly fit themselves and to make 
other due preparation for its toils and burdens, before assum¬ 
ing them, it becomes as vicious as any other desire wrongly 
indulged can be. A desire does not necessarily imply a present 
right to gratify it. We must earn and deserve even the right 
enjoyment of every desire or affection. If there were more 
sense, prudence, and conscience in these marital engagements, 
and less control of instinctive attachments, there would be 
fewer divorces, or need of, or desire for them. 

To seek the plaudits of the good for virtue, of the learned 
for science, of the prudent for wisdom, of the world for suc¬ 
cessful achievement, or useful, grand or beneficent inventions 
or deeds, of God for the due discharge of His ordained duties 
to man and God, is a virtuous aspiration and endeavor. But to 
seek applause by corrupt and corrupting means, or to woo the 
plaudits of the reckless, the licentious, the vicious or the crimi¬ 
nal by like or other recklessness, vice or crime, as by seduc¬ 
tion, piracy, highway robbery, fraud, or other wrong or crime, 
is as certainly execrably vicious. 

To seek diligently to know our own duty in our own sphere 
of life and present condition, and to fit ourselves for the dis¬ 
charge of higher summons for more exacting and wider duties, 
is certainly a virtue. But, to measure others in different con¬ 
ditions by our own perhaps right standards, and to seek in any 
way not to convince, but to coerce them, and to force our standards 
of faith, duty or religion upon others, who have an equal right 
to their own judgments and creeds, subject only to the arbitra¬ 
ment of society as to public nuisances or immoralities, and to 
the final judgment of the one unerring intelligence, is arrogance 
and vice. 

And again, it is virtuous in all who can, without neglect of 
home and family duties, attend church or other services, or anni¬ 
versary or other meetings of benevolent, literary or other so¬ 
cieties, so to do, but an inordinate dissipation of this kind, in¬ 
jurious to the home and family and its proper education and 
discipline, degenerates into positive vice. 

And the same principle, of which the above cases are illus¬ 
trations, affects and is concurrent with every instinct, appetite, 


KINDRED VICES AND VIRTUES. 


151 


propensity, affection or faculty of man—even the moral, spirit¬ 
ual and intelligent faculties. Each, in its own sphere of normal 
operations, seeking and attaining by all right means in its power 
and without trespass upon the domain of equal right of another, 
its proper objects, is virtuous only; and each by its opposite 
modes of manifestation or pursuit, or by its trespass upon others 
or irreverent excess or perversion, becomes a vice. Thus every 
man may lawfully seek positions of trust, honor or emolument, 
but when he seeks it with a conscious unfitness for it, or by 
derogating from the character of a competitor or thwarting a 
rival of superior capacity and fitness, he is guilty of wrong. 
Hence the untrained, unprincipled and undiscriminating may 
and do easily practice vice, even while dreaming of and applaud¬ 
ing themselves for the love and practice of its kindred virtue. 

The common man or woman, of narrow and ordinary oppor¬ 
tunities of knowledge, education and thought, who accepts 
no authority of church, or state, or science, as binding in morals, 
and relies exclusively, in his egotistic pride, upon the guidance 
of his own instincts, intelligence and conscience only, is guilty 
of criminal arrogance, and begins his course in the vice of arro¬ 
gance and conceit, and is ever in danger of degeneration into 
multitudinous vices. The artist, the musician, the scientist, the 
literateur, the orator, who in this nineteenth century, should 
reject all study of preceding masters, and canons or principles of 
his art or science, and limit himself to his own original rules 
only, would be no more insane than is he who attempts it in 
morals. And they, who are utterly untrained and unprincipled, 
save by their own independent thought alone, even when their 
intellect is of the highest order, cannot fail often, amidst their 
best intentions, to fall into mistakes, perhaps of a radical and 
fatal nature in morals, under one kind of vice or another. Easily 
mistaking vice for virtue and virtue for vice, when they con¬ 
sider and consult no authority but their own, in exigencies pro¬ 
duced by their own follies or otherwise, they cannot fail to be 
successfully tempted to crime, and even to its shameless vindi¬ 
cation ; and then the terrors of dynamitism, assassination, arson 
or other like or worse crimes, startle and terrorize lands. 

For all the more ordinary and imperative terrestrial duties 
and relations, the municipal law might furnish some standard. 


152 


VIA M0RALIS VINCENDI. 


But no common man, actively engaged in ordinary pursuits, 
studies it at all, except as it may affect liis current dealings ; and 
even professional men and judges differ on its interpretation or 
application, whether it is written or unwritten. And the munic¬ 
ipal law deals not at all with spiritual duties or duties to God, 
and not even with moral duties as such ; but bases itself only 
upon considerations of public policy, and it only becomes a true 
rule of duty, because public expediences rightly discerned can 
lead back only to the true law of duty; or, in other words, be¬ 
cause the discharge of real duty is always conducive to the 
general welfare, while a departure from it, works mischief 
nearer or more remote; and a true rule of right, really reached 
by either a study of the constitution of man’s nature, or by a 
careful and broad consideration of its expediency, can only be 
the same identical rule in either case; but isolated and individual 
expediences do not necessarily or often conduct to any real rules 
of duty. 

Hence men and women in general, must either be thor¬ 
oughly schooled and principled in right morals by some school 
of morals, or must have faith in some religion, and accept the 
authority of some church and its varied means of grace or forti¬ 
fication of good resolves and virtuous living, if they would be 
lifted up to the full dignity and virtue of even their moral 
nature, and even approach the virtue of a perfect manhood. 
And, although the church and the minister may or may not 
mistake their duty and mission, when they subordinate the 
teaching and practice of moral and religious duties, to the in¬ 
culcations of controversial theology, yet the knowledge of God 
as the source of the moral law and of all law, and the knowl¬ 
edge of the moral law and law of love, and of the duty to God and 
His creatures which they impose, must, to be fully effective, go 
together and operate together. Senseless declamations against 
priest-craft and priesthood generally, have never done away 
with its existence in any age; and while a deity exists, to be 
worshiped, never will. Man cannot avoid sin, unless he knows 
what is sin. He may ignorantly obey a law, or he may ignor¬ 
antly violate it, schools of morals may supplement, but cannot 
supercede priesthood, unless they become churches or schools 
of theology and worship also. One priesthood may succeed 


KINDRED VICES AND VIRTUES. 


153 


another that becomes luxurious, temporizing, worldly, inane 
and effete, but a priesthood there will ever be, to discharge the 
proper duties of the priestly office, until every man or woman 
becomes himself or herself fitted for priestly office. Christ 
came and taught his doctrine, not for his own sake nor to insti¬ 
tute a church or a priesthood primarily or the doctrines them¬ 
selves, but through the foolishness of preaching “ to save sin¬ 
ners” from their sins and from the penalties certain to attend a 
long continuance in them. And a priesthood that fails in that 
high function, whatever else it may do, falls short of its high 
avocation, and is doomed. While both Jewish theology and 
Christianity, and in fact every other known system of religion, 
more or less erringly have taught and do teach the general duty 
of submission to the divine will in every thing and to every 
divine law, and is declarative of that will, man needs authorita¬ 
tively to know what that will and law is, so far as it affects his 
common life, or he cannot with certainty obey it. The church 
teaches at least and ever, and at times perhaps too exclusively, 
the spiritual law of man’s being and his relations to deity, and 
is as to these things his only preceptor. If it does not or cannot 
teach exhaustively also, through competent ministers, and boldly 
apply to the conduct of life, the rules and principles of the 
moral law, which, under our voluntary system o£ ministerial 
support, is a work not free from difficulty, and may demand in 
the minister the spirit of a martyr; or even if he does teach it 
and but few attend his ministrations—schools of moral philos¬ 
ophy, that can be taught at night, or in connection with the 
public schools, cannot be safely dispensed with, for such at least 
as fail to be regularly and constantly drawn to the free minis¬ 
tration of the church. But practice, discipline and moral power 
can come only from constant right activity and vigilance of 
faculty or function, at all proper times, and must in any event 
have its school of actual practice, in the home and the spheres of 
business. And these are the only real schools of practice, how¬ 
ever or wherever the noble science may be taught and its ele¬ 
mentary principles expounded. 


154 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


CHAPTER XXIY. 

TRUE MORALITY AND ITS BASIS-A SUMMARY OF RADICAL 

PRINCIPLES-THE TRUE NIRVANA. 

True morality consists not then in the suppression or extinc¬ 
tion of any natural appetite, instinct, desire or faculty in any 
condition of life—always an impossible work and undertaken 
by the anchorites of the caves and deserts ever in vain—but in 
the right guidance and regulated normal and harmonious activ¬ 
ity of all of them in their place, time and order, and in the pur¬ 
suit by each of its proper object, and in the due subjection and 
limitation of the lower and more purely selfish, earthly and 
animal instincts to the higher rational, moral and religious fac¬ 
ulties. 

“What God has joined together let no man put asunder” 
applies emphatically to man’s soul constitution. He who deems 
any instinct, immoral or degrading per se , or except in its abuses 
or excesses, becomes the victim of his own imagination.— 
“Puris omnia pur a sunt He who so thinks engages in a vain 
effort for thg attainment of sinless perfection, if he attempt it 
by the extinction of any instinct or class of instincts accord¬ 
ing to his false standard. He abnegates some of his divinely 
appointed works, of earth at least, as shown in the very God- 
created constitution of his nature; and, he will essay in vain to 
suppress completely that which nature’s God, for wise earthly 
purposes, has implanted, and which man can order, regulate, 
guide and control, but cannot extinguish; the very effort to 
extinguish which is an impious sin against man’s omniscient 
and all-wise Creator. And he, who professes to be free from 
the temptations of any of these human instincts before senility 
or disease have enfeebled them, may at once be set down as 
either a charlatan with vile knavish intents, or idiotic in that 
lack of endowment. It is no sign of excellence to vary from 
God’s standard of the elementary constitution of human char¬ 
acter. 


*To the pure, all things are pure. 



THE TRUE NIRVANA. 


155 


Every propensity, appetite, instinct, affection and faculty 
is the gift of a good and wise Creator, implanted in man’s soul 
to subserve the needs of this life or of that which is to come, 
to multiply in man the bonds of affection and the sources of 
rational enjoyment, happiness and pleasure, and to give additional 
stimulus, power, and persistence to industrial effort. Each, in 
its right use and enjoyment, is monumental of the goodness 
and benevolence of God. Man, under mistaken theories of virtue 
and vice, strives in vain to eliminate any; and it is as unwise, 
unphilosophical and impious so to do, as it is for man with his 
limited wisdom, to criticise the Infinite, and his plan and law, 
or to arrogate to man supremacy over his Creator. And, even 
when for the highest and noblest purposes of consecration of 
himself to God in some special lines of his service, he utterly 
abnegates any of them, he cannot escape temptations, although 
he may, with great difficulty, overcome their seductions. 

The real office of moral philosophy is to study and teach 
the true sphere and limit of each instinct, affection and faculty ; 
within which bounds lies true morality. To enjoy the rational 
activities and indulgence of each within its rightful sphere, and 
as to rightful objects of desire, is not immoral; and it is no less 
irrational to causelessly refuse to partake of any spring of 
human pleasure, than it is to refuse any needed wholesome and 
palatable food in its season, or proper change of raiment accord¬ 
ing to the weather and season. Even to seek to force into 
inertia any of the instincts of man, when he is engaged only in 
the ordinary commerce of the world, is a sin: for they, in 
unison with the higher motives, should urge us to deeper studies 
and grander efforts to achieve the just object of each and all. 
And a moral treatise might, in this view of the subject, be 
written on the virtue or vice attending the right use, abuse 
or misdenial of each elementary instinct, affection, intellectual 
faculty or spiritual endowment, by him who made it a- special 
study. 

The moral theory of this whole work, as it affects the fun¬ 
damental canons or principles of morality, may then be sum¬ 
med up in these six clear and distinct propositions: 

First —It is virtuous to seek rightly, and to enjoy moder¬ 
ately, all the true objects of every natural appetite, instinct, 


156 


VIA MORA LIS VINCENDI. 


propensity, affection or faculty—that is to say, so temperately 
that no one of them shall be so indulged as to starve another, 
or wrong or injure self or others, or violate God’s law of nature 
or revelation. 

Second —That we must so pursue and enjoy their and our 
objects, as not to impair, molest, or obstruct another’s equal 
right to pursue, attain and enjoy them; or in any way to inter¬ 
fere with it or intrude upon any of his rightful possessions or 
enjoyments, or any right that is his. 

Third —That we must actively and co-operatively do unto 
others, as we would rightly and rationally desire that they should 
do unto us—in other words, that we should make all reasonable 
efforts in our power, personally or by -associated agencies, to aid 
them, and to promote their right pursuits, and real enjoy¬ 
ments and welfare, here and in the hereafter—neither of which 
can be most effectively promoted, the one separate from the 
other. 

Fourth —That, in order to fit ourselves for these varied 
rightful enjoyments and duties, we must inform and discipline 
our mental, moral and religious faculties, and fit them quickly 
and ever to see and know the right, and to exercise and disci¬ 
pline that self-control and self-denial, which is essential to every 
truly moral life, and to do all our life-work, with the highest 
degree of energy, skill and persistence of which we can be made 
capable. 

Fifth —That true morality is conformity to God’s law of 
nature and revelation, all disobedience of which is immoral; 
which law by moral science must be sought through a study of 
external nature and of man’s physical, instinctive, mental, moral 
and religious constitution, aided by revelation. 

Sixth —That to lead a moral life, man must seek to give 
dominion to the moral, religious and intellectual faculties of his 
nature by constant right practice, and diligent and varied study ; 
must seek all the means of self-fortification and of energizing 
the moral and religious instincts afforded by the schools and the 
institutions and ordinances of religion, which God permits in 
any land, or has established or made known to man, until such 
time as he may supercede them by higher and better institu- 


THE TRUE NIRVANA. 


157 


tions and ordinances ; and that all religions, in their essential 
precepts and ordinances, except as they may be corrupted % hu¬ 
man interpretation, or traditions, or perpetuated beyond their 
time, whether they be the production of the God-given higher 
thought and deeper insight of the natural faculties of man or 
of more miraculous revelation from God, were and are better for 
man than no religion at all. In view of man’s spiritual nature 
and endowments, an era without any religion or superstition, is 
an impossibility. None such has ever been known in all man’s 
recorded history, and even the heathen a not having the law, 
are a law unto themselves.” And, if it were possible that to¬ 
day every form of religious belief and worship could be swept 
away, leaving man with his present spiritual constitution still in 
being, some form of faith, worship and priesthood more or less 
perfect, would at once take its place. Atheism and infidelity, 
whether born of heathen philosophy or of modern skepticism, 
are but symptoms of a religious idiocy or monstrosity that is not 
to be reasoned with, and are no more worthy of combat than 
any other form of perversity, idiocy, or insanity. The universe 
of visible and invisible worlds like or unlike our own, of which 
every fixed star within our view is a central sun, has, to¬ 
gether with our own planetary system, its law and the one 
Supreme Law-giver; and wherever created beings live as in¬ 
telligent free-agents, His wonderful works proclaim his king¬ 
dom, and there must be, and is, a moral law for beings endowed 
with moral instinct, that must govern them to assure their hap¬ 
piness. It is evident, that the due discharge of all the varied 
duties imposed by that law and the necessity of his reasonable 
gratification of his many innocent desires, leave to no man time 
for idleness or folly; and with the utmost economy of time, 
every fleeting moment makes its demand for mental, moral, 
religious or physical activity, and the diverse elements of man’s 
constitution demand other activities ; and this diversity of ac¬ 
tivity gives rest to each, while others may act with the greatest 
energy—and this with needful sleep, is man’s true rest, here at 
least, if not also in the hereafter ; that the Bhuddist’s dream of 
Nirvana or final rest, is but a vain illusion, and, if it could be 
realized, would be the repose of annihilation of all that consti¬ 
tutes the life of mankind ; and that in the right and normal 


158 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


activity of all human instincts and faculties and in the progres¬ 
sive knowledge of the wonder-worker and his wonderful works 
and his worship alone, is found man’s supreme felicity. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

PREDESTINATION THROUGH DIVINE LAW AND HUMAN 

FREE-WILL-PROVIDENCE, PRAYER AND 

TRUE RELIGION. 

There can be no right theory of morals or of human destiny 
that does not comprehend the idea of a Divine Ruler; and is 
not based on the fact df a divine, supreme, constant law. Ex¬ 
pediences are considerations properly affecting questions of 
wisdom ; and are preliminary to the establishment of law, and 
are not conclusive as to questions of right under established 
laws. Yet that, which is intrinsically hurtful or unjust, cannot 
be accordant to the law of that God who created the conscience 
of man, and implanted in him the instinct of benevolence. 
And, although expediency may become one of the tests of duty, 
yet in all the varying circumstances of life, there are higher 
tests in man’s own constitution, and there is arising therefrom 
an absolute rule of duty. But while such rule is generally 
applicable in precisely similar conditions, it may become inap¬ 
plicable by a variation of circumstances which renders a differ¬ 
ent rule applicable; and there is sometimes the same difficulty 
in applying to special cases minute rules of the moral as of 
the municipal law—the latter being generally intended as an 
expression in words or a formulation of the moral law in its regu¬ 
lation of human transactions and relations in special cases. 

But however differently or erringly man may interpret or 
apply either the moral or natural law, the law of God, in morals, 
as in the physical sciences, is ever one and the same, and as 
immutable as his own nature, and the elementary attributes of 
human character and human relations by him called into being. 
These are essentially the same in all ages ; and so must be the 
law impressed upon or founded in them from the beginning. 



PREDESTINATION THROUGH DIVINE LAW, ETC. 159 

Human knowledge, ignorance, or ability to comprehend these 
laws in their fullness may have varied in the past, or to-day may be 
various; and, so his comprehension and interpretation of every 
law must vary according to his condition, prejudices or intelli¬ 
gence. In this sense, there is and may be, progress in moral 
or religious science. But the very fact of the creation of a fac¬ 
ulty, affection or instinct,-implies that it has an established 
constitution, function and object, and a law of its being, action 
and a limitation of its sphere. Man, as a material, moral and spirit¬ 
ual or religious being, amenable to laws of each element of his 
nature co-eval with his creation, may violate either ; but, he must 
suffer the penalty of a violation of the law of either nature. By 
conformity to these laws, he assures his material, moral or 
spiritual welfare and fulfills his God-ordained destiny for good : 
by non-conformity a like destiny for evil—a destiny that may 
be heavenly and heavenward here and hereafter, or the reverse. 
God, as creator and law-giver, is king and Lord, and man be¬ 
ing but his creature designed for a mission on earth and in 
heaven, expressed in his God-given powers, is but His servant, 
to do and fulfill the purposes of his creation by the Most High ; 
and he fulfills it, inevitably predestined by the law of his moral, 
spiritual, and affectional nature to weal or woe according to his 
own voluntary acts, and the just or excessive, harmonious or 
inharmonious training and activity of the faculties and affections 
of his own soul. His own ever-present and urgent earthly 
needs and greeds urgently compel him to serve, in a degree at 
least, in and by some daily occupation, and to the duty of dili¬ 
gence therein ; and few fall below, but many never rise beyond 
this service. But, if he cultivate and use his intellect, its 
studies to satisfy the cravings of his manifold nature impel him 
also to the duty of a higher education of all his faculties and 
powers, or perhaps to their highest capacity of practical useful¬ 
ness for the purposes of his earthly life, and to the constant 
practice of all economies, courtesies and integrity. 

But his earthly desires, affections, instincts, propensities, 
greeds and ambitions are necessarily so numerous, urgent, im¬ 
mediate and insatiable that they tend, without some special at¬ 
tention to the cultivation of the moral and spiritual instincts, 
to render the latter inert or impotent and to engross his whole 


160 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


thoughts to the neglect of his Creator and of the divine law of 
his moral and spiritual faculties and being—hence, the more 
cultured and intelligent soon find it necessary to appropriate 
specially some portion of time to that study ; and then, a Sab¬ 
bath of holy rest from worldly pursuits, and from thoughts 
about them, and all the institutions of religion, whether more 
or less typical or perfect, becomes necessary and are welcome to 
train and elevate the moral and spiritual elements of man’s na¬ 
ture ; and they forever stand ordained and established for his 
salvation from his sins, or the excesses and perversities prompted 
by his lower or terrestrial instincts. And hence, schools of a 
divine philosophy, for the worldly or irreligious confirmed 
skeptic especially, who will use no other, and a priesthood for 
either or for both classes, have always existed, and must 
exist to inform the moral and spiritual faculties or instincts 
of man in the special knowledge of his earthly and heavenly 
mission, of God and his moral and spiritual laws, and to keep 
men the conscious subjects of the great universal kingdom of 
God and of right. 

And, although God’s moral laws are always unchangeable, 
except through a change in the human constitution in which 
they inhere, the knowledge, and comprehension, and formula¬ 
tion or revelation of them, as well as those of physics, may be, 
as they have been, gradual and progressive. But such knowl¬ 
edge or revelations, if genuine and true in one age, can /only be 
cumulative or successive in another, but cannot be contradictory 
of those of a prior or subsequent age, without a corresponding 
change in man’s elementary nature and attributes. And it is 
evident that, if man be a created being, he cannot, however in¬ 
dustrious, successful or great he may be, live his perfect life on 
earth or hereafter, without a full conformity to the moral and 
spiritual law of his nature; for all men are created not of one 
blood only, but of one essential spirit breathed into them with 
the breath of life. In any non-conformity thereto, there is a 
fall of man. To remain perfect in his kind, he must continu¬ 
ously, in all his generations, look up to that Supreme Being who 
has by his law imposed, created or constituted all things ; and 
he must recognize that he alone of all God’s creatures, being 
endowed with a highly inquisitive intelligence, moral and relig- 


PREDESTINATION THROUGH DIVINE LAW, ETC. 161 

ious faculties or instincts, must seek to know the whole law of 
God and execute his whole will in conformity to that law. And 
yet every debasement of intellect, or moral, or religious instinct 
necessarily renders him less curious to know the laws and less 
ready to obey them. 

But, if man must know the law and do it, and that law must 
be constant and inexorable in its operation, it cannot be set 
aside for any and every sincere prayer, prompted by the ignor¬ 
ance, indolence, selfish instincts or momentary needs of the sin- 
cerest petitioner. The efficacious prayer must be based, not on 
simple craving and an inane hope or a forced or capricious faith 
born of desire only, but on a right, reverential and rational faith 
in the God of law, who ruleth by law and by the mysterious 
operation of yet unknown and unseen agencies performeth 
apparent miracles. The prayer that expects a favorable answer 
to lawless aspiration, by some miraculous setting aside of the 
law of nature, implanted in him or external to him, and not 
through the petitioner’s own conformity to divine law, is an 
arrogant, irreverent and impious dictation, and not a lowly 
petition, even when it prays only for daily bread. For even if 
one has fallen low enough to crave the unearned bread of charity, 
he must make known to the charitable his need, which may be 
done by prayer overheard, or otherwise he must seek it dili¬ 
gently in the ordinary right way, as well as by prayer. The 
prayer that asks for it in the faith of God’s blessing upon his 
own resolute will to win it by God’s ever sustaining help and in 
his appointed way, is the true effective prayer of faith, into which 
the heart and common sense of man enters; and a right faith in 
its being answered lends renewed energy to after efforts, and 
conduces to inspiration as to a way of winning it, and to suc¬ 
cessful effort. So prayed Elijah on Carmel’s mount, Cromwell, 
Stonewall Jackson, and Washington, when leaders of armies or 
of States, and Christ or his disciples when inaugurating the 
mighty scheme of redemption that was soon to revolutionize the 
world. Prayer is not, however, an institution of the Christian 
or Jewish dispensations only. There is no record of an era 
when no prayer was ever offered ; and, that even the wise but 
deformed slave iEsop, although a pagan, understood the essen¬ 
tial theory of efficacious prayer, is evident from his familiar 

K 


162 


VIA MOKALIS VINCENDI. 


fable as to Hercules and the wain-driver, his prayer and its 
response. God rules, not like the weakest of people, by special 
expedients and make-shifts, but by and through the law of the 
inspiring, force-generating efficacy and power of prayer, which 
works ever a favorable answer, not to the superficial utterance of 
the lip, but to the real aspiration of the heart, not to every one who 
inanely cries “ Lord, Lord,” but to the really God-trusting, God¬ 
fearing, God-revering man of genuine and not counterfeit or 
assumed faith in Him, and His law and its wonder-working. 
The prayer that expects an answer by miracle to the mere utter¬ 
ance or aspiration of the indolent or willfully ignorant, who 
neglect all the God-appointed ordinary ways of attainment, or 
expects it except in those ways, and the use of all the divinely 
appointed means and in God’s time, or that asks that which is 
not fit and proper for the petitioner or others, is simply intpious, 
and must be abortive, or its very grant may be a curse. It is 
not the office of prayer to supplement total neglect or willful 
ignorance or vice. 

God being everywhere, is also in and about every human 
being, and knows the state of every soul, its fitness for any con¬ 
dition and work, and its every aspiration and desire ; and He is 
ever working in every soul that rejects him not, through his 
own constant laws, both to “will and to do,” Prayer is but a 
mode of seeking and making efficient in us this ever present in¬ 
spiration, power and help. It may be uttered in words, or rest 
in silent aspiration of the soul. But all, either have, or must 
intelligently seek to make, their fitness for one or another of 
God’s works on earth. They need expect no miracle to fit them 
for any work or bring any work to them, except the miracle 
of their own God-given working faculties, and their own 
proper fitness for and quest after it. Both fitness and opportu¬ 
nity come in his ordinary appointed way, by being really and 
heartily, and not verbally only sought. Man cannot change that 
suitable work and its own proper rewards to his own real or 
lasting benefit, or that of others, or to the better service of God, 
except by patiently fitting himself for some higher work aspired 
to, as Joshua was fitted for his great work while the minister of 
Moses, and as David was fitted for his when protecting his 
father’s flocks with sling and stone, or when gaining his experi- 


PREDESTINATION THROUGH DIVINE LAW, ETC. 163 

ence of the court of a king, as the king’s musical companion to 
“minister to a mind diseased,” or when leading with Abner and 
Jonathan the armies of Israel, and most of all, when a fugitive 
hunted for his very life. The first duty and the earliest prayer 
of all people must be for that self-culture, for themselves and 
those with whom their destinies are linked, that shall fit them 
for higher, better, and more sagacious and effective doing of 
God’s work in the same or a higher sphere. When they fit them¬ 
selves or their loved ones for a more exalted or compensatory ser¬ 
vice, of which the world knows or can be taught its need, they 
may seek and expect the summons of God, through the intelli¬ 
gence of man to do it. Providence, ruling by law, grants prayer 
ordinarily through conformity to that law which indicates the 
way in which the answer must come. The petition that has not 
sense, soul and reverence in it to induce the petitioner to search 
out and pursue the God-appointed paths for its honorable attain¬ 
ment in God’s time, is not a source of strength, even when attended 
by some baseless, illusory fiction or semblance of faith ; but is 
only a hollow mockery of faith and prayer. Miracles may be 
rarely evoked to effect God’s great purposes. They cannot await 
the indolent hopes and impotent petitions of mere insolent self- 
seeking or reckless ignorance and want of thought. When Elijah, 
at Mount Carmel, called down the fire from Heaven, which con¬ 
sumed the wet wood and the sacrificial offering by prayer, it was 
not to glorify himself but to prove to the Baal worshipers among 
the Israelites the power of Jehovah and the impotence of Baal 
and his worship—the miracle being necessary for the overthrow 
of Baal and his priests and the return of the chosen people to 
the service of the true God. For all ordinary occasions and in¬ 
dividual exigencies there is a law ; and the really God-revering 
and God-fearing Christian dare not ask miraculous intervention, 
but seeks by prayer the attainment of light and life, and all good, 
through its ordinary efficacies and through a supreme desire, 
like the desire of Elijah, not to pamper self, but to serve Him; 
and through a right faith and obedience and service, the appro¬ 
priate rewards of that service : For 

“ God, veiled in clonded majesty, alone 
Gives light to all, bids the great system move, 

And changing seasons in their turn advance, 

Unmoved, unchanged Himself. ” 


164 


VIA VINCENDI MORALIS. 


But prayer is not therefore ineffectual, if it be wise and 
proper to be answered; for light and inspiration rightly to pur¬ 
sue and do, and new vigor, may in the very moment of its sin¬ 
cere and earnest aspiration be born of it, or the knowledge of 
the way of attainment, and the will to follow it, may come from 
persistent study, or in such way that we can hardly tell whether 
our own working mind or the spirit of God working within us or 
through the hearts, minds or wills of others, enlightens and 
strengthens us; but in one way or other, illumination and the 
attainment of the objects of righteous, persistent prayer, will 
surely come. 

“ Yes, thou art ever present, Power divine! 

Not circumscribed by time, nor fixed to space, 

Confined to altars, nor to temples bound, 

In wealth, in want, in freedom or in chains, 

In dungeons or on thrones, the faithful find thee ! ” 

In prayer, as elsewhere, an humble submission to and deep 
abiding trust in God’s wisdom, justice and beneficence, and res¬ 
ignation to His wise decree must be the foundation of all avail¬ 
ing prayer, accompanied by faith in Him that He will guide 
our laboring intellect aright and answer favorably our prayer, 
or refuse it, as we may wisely or unwisely ask, in love and ac¬ 
cording to the dictates of his omniscient wisdom. Real prayer 
is the humble petition of weakness to the throne of power, of 
the subject to his King, and cannot convert the subject into the 
Lord and never be imperative. It would be so, if simply be¬ 
cause we ask aright, believing after some half-hearted fashion, 
that it will be granted, it must therefore be granted. That 
irrational faith is not the faith of the bible, nor of common 
sense, nor the true faith of the human mind, except perhaps 
in the self-deceiving, ignorant, gross or superstitious. The faith 
that achieves a grant is a higher faith—the faith that our 
heavenly Father wills to do us good, and that He will, not in 
the way of our indolent or capricious aspirations, but in his own 
appointed time and way of divine wisdom and inspiration, give 
us all such good dispositions, capabilities and attainments as we 
really seek for, and as are for our good and the good of others and 
of all, and an essential ingredient of every right aspiration of 
every soul must be, “Not my will, but thine, be done.” And 


PREDESTINATION THROUGH DIVINE LAW, ETC. 105 

then there can be no disappointment, but a patient waiting, ex¬ 
pectation, preparation and work only. And the worthy peti¬ 
tioner feels in his inmost soul 

“The Lord—how tender is His tear ! 

His justice how august! 

Hence all her fears my soul derives— 

There anchors all her trust.” 

And such prayer, offered in such a spirit, with such a faith, 
always tends to attainment, by making men worthy of and fit 
for what they seek, and by leading them to right seeking. 

In silence and obscurity, unnoted by man and unheralded 
by blare of trumpet or burst of artillery, Providence raises up 
the instruments to execute its great designs, as it rears alike the 
lichen and the oak ; as it fitted Moses and Joshua, Christ and 
His apostles for their tasks. When seers and prophets are 
needed, a Moses is trained in the court and in the wilderness, 
and in temples for His high mission, an Elijah is inspired by 
persecution and lonely vigils and contemplation, and an Elisha 
is fitted in the service of his predecessor. When a leader is 
needed, a Sampson is endowed with terrible physical powers, or 
a David or a Solomon with excelling wisdom, or a Gideon with 
a power of strategy, which strikes panic into the hostile hosts 
and causes them to become the instruments of mutual slaughter. 
When the world is to be revolutionized, the seeming son of a 
lowly carpenter is born in a manger in an obscure and rocky 
village among the hills of Judea, toils at the humble trade of a 
carpenter the major part of his life of thirty or thirty-four years, 
works signs and wonders, and teaches for five or six of the last 
of those years of a life, in which he had not “ where to lay his 
head,” selects his disciples from lowly avocations of life and 
expires by a most cruel and infamous death upon the cross; 
while during his other years we have little record of his grow¬ 
ing greatness as a man, except that in his infancy he disputed 
with the doctors or learned men of the Temple, and astonished 
all who heard him, with the wisdom of his answers. The 
flowery paths of ease and dalliance with pleasure, the pageantries 
of wealth, the trappings of power, the pride, pomp and luxury 
of courts were not their paths ; nor have they been, nor are they 
now, the paths to real greatness or worthy achievements. The 


166 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


haste to be great is the sign of an impatient and relatively in¬ 
capable spirit of charlatanism or reckless and self-seeking ad¬ 
venture. Time alone matures aught. Genius may be born, 
but true greatness is a growth, and in every sphere of life, has 
its preliminary schools of preparation. And generally they are 
the schools of trial or adversity. True wisdom is born of a rug¬ 
ged experience, and we must all, as a primary duty to God, be 
content to drink the bitter waters of Marah, and do the work 
to which He seems to call us, ever striving to fit ourselves for 
life’s highest offices and for higher work in that sphere or any 
other for which He has given us aspirations. And if, in the 
hereafter we are not, in the Providence of God, called to any 
other, it will be either because He has more suitable agents to 
work out His will in that sphere, or the people to be served are 
fit only for inferior services, or we do not ourselves watch and 
rightly seek to avail ourselves of opportunity, or the times in 
which we live do not demand that kind of service. “Seek and 
ye shall find,” is not only a rule of attainment of heavenly gains 
and moral superiority, but of earthly pleasures, possessions, 
honors, affections and success; and he, who is either too proud 
or too pre-occupied to rightly and really seek either, cannot 
justly complain of their non-attainment. And vigilance in 
seeking alone can seize opportunity in its flight. 

“There is a tide in the affairs of men, 

Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, 

Omitted, all the voyage of their life 

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.” 

True religion is not external to the man. It consists not 
in the mere forms or ceremonies, which ought to be the out¬ 
ward definite expression of ideas, or are calculated to add visi¬ 
ble solemnity to worship, or are and can be made means of in¬ 
spiration of special grace. Nor does it consist in the acquisition 
and retention of mere abstract ideas. Each of these are only 
its muniments and outworks. It is a holy fervor abiding in 
the soul. It is, if it exists at all, the living activity of those 
instincts and faculties of the soul, that in all ages and even in 
times of densest ignorance go forth in search of or for com¬ 
munion with the Worshipful and Supreme, and bow down to the 
Wonderful and Wonder-worker, but ever in humble conscious- 


PREDESTINATION THROUGH DIYINE LAW, ETC. 167 

ness that they, the finite, can attain no adequate conception 
of Him, the Infinite. However intelligent or however debased 
man may be in his generations, and however enfeebled, dark¬ 
ened, or almost dormant may be the instinct that looks or strug¬ 
gles to the supernatural or that is awed into supplication by the 
invisible and pnseen Mystery and Power, it exists in man, and 
whether he worship the true God or some false and imaginary 
figment of an untutored brain, or some human charlatanic great¬ 
ness, he must worship. And, although, when he condescends 
to hero-worship, or when he makes his lower instincts supreme, 
and personifying them as did the Egyptians, Syrians, Greeks 
and Homans, enthrones them as Gods, or when he deifies the 
powers of nature and even brutes, he seems to forget and ignore 
God,it is necessary only to arouse to activity his God-given spirit¬ 
ual faculties that prompt him to see God, as was done by the 
miracles and the teaching of Christianity, to again enable him 
to discover, feel and know the ever-present One, to rise to 
higher and nobler spiritual ideas of Him, and to feel the divine 
light, life and power glow into and energize his every spiritual 
aspiration. Nor have the wonders of revelation and its scheme 
of redemption, nor the institutes, ceremonies and sacraments of 
true religion any arbitrary action on man in working upon him 
a miracle, but they are wisely and admirably adapted, through 
their own and faith’s operation, to awaken, energize, vivify, in¬ 
form and guide aright those God-given faculties of wonder or 
faith and worship, which perversity and ignorance alone gener¬ 
ally transform into mere breeders of baseless superstitions, and 
which a studious and inquisitive intelligence may, even in pagan 
times, with the indwelling aid of the divine spirit, lift into the 
light, life and joy of the all-pervading and all-inspiring God, 
as it lifted a Socrates and a host of Christian martyrs. 

Who fables ? Who is audacious ? Is it he, who sees 
through all ages, man in every age recognizing superior invisi¬ 
ble Powers and worshiping some great unseen First Cause, 
and supreme Law-giver? Or is it he, who dares to deny that 
there is any First Cause of the laws, order and harmonies of 
the universe from age to age ? Is it he, who, seeing every¬ 
where around him countless things, each beautiful, grand, won¬ 
derful and perfect in its kind, rises to the belief in a Wonder- 


168 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


ful and perfect Creator, or he, who proclaims that this same 
visible nature, even to the very dust we tread on, is at once the 
subject of law and is also at the same time its own law-giver 1 
Who is rash, foolish and credulous, he who attributes law-giv¬ 
ing to the material and insensible clod, or he, who, from his self- 
consciousness of the soul within him that moyns, searches, 
knows, plans, aspires and worships, rises to some dim or clear 
conception of some wonderful and worship-worthy Designer 
and Inspirer ? Who is a visionary, he who asserts the eternity 
of the visible that is ever changing, decaying and dissolving 
before his very eyes and is finite, or he, who rises to the concep¬ 
tion of an infinite and eternal wisdom ordaining the wise laws 
and stable order of unnumbered worlds ? Who is wise or in¬ 
sane, he who, in spite of the instinctive or rational belief of all 
man’s generations, believes that there is no soul to live beyond 
the grave, or he who feels assured that he has within him a life, 
a soul, having no attribute of matter, that shall not perish with 
the material body that from its very birth is treading “funeral 
marches to the grave?” Who is reasonable or irrational he, 
who, knowing that his every work wrought by his bodily organs 
in the world has its origin immediately from the working body, 
but really from the intelligent soul within it, and so goes back 
from the grand work of the universe to its intelligent creative 
soul, or he, who proclaims that there is no all-ruling Intelligent 
Spirit beyond or within the visible ? Who is foolish, he who, 
without warrant and beyond all known analogies in life, believes 
that some miraculous change must at death supervene to make 
all who have wronged and made unhappy themselves or others, 
fit for bliss and to find in the contemplation of divine wisdom 
a joy unknown to them on earth, or he, who knows that no 
miracle can then be expected and that there can be no heaven 
for the thoughtless, the wicked, the extortioner, the jangler, the 
cruel, the murderer, who continue until death to spread misery 
around them; nor, where they go can there be any paradise, or 
heaven of unalloyed felicity for even the really good ? Who is 
wise, he who, knowing that man can violate no law of nature 
without bringing upon himself its penalty, and, reasoning from 
analogy, believes in rewards and punishments hereafter, or he 
who relies, in direct opposition to all he knows of God’s deal- 


SOLITUDE, SOCIETY, HAPPINESS, ETC. 169 

ings with his creatures on earth, upon the benevolence of God 
to make the hereafter different from any state lie has ever 
known—a state without law and without penalty for any or 
all? What miracle shall, in the moment of death, bring to¬ 
gether the ways that began and continued through life on earth 
to diverge further and further apart—the one ever leading here 
to squalor, filth, debasement, ruin and agony of one’s self or 
others and the other to continuous purification, exaltation and 
bliss? No voice of nature—no oracle of reason—no word 
of Deity, gives the slightest warrant for the belief that man 
can be, in the endless hereafter, other than the good or evil 
being which he persistently makes himself here, or that he 
does not here fix unalterably his character and consequent 
destiny; but, scripture and revelation expressly declare that he 
does so fix it! 


♦ 


CHAPTER XXVJL. 

SOLITUDE, SOCIETY, HAPPINESS, BEST AND ACTION. 

There have been innumerable theories of happiness, and 
each has not been wholly devoid of truth. The stoic was not 
in error when he sought it in abstemiousness, fortitude and a 
certain indifference to pain and pleasure; nor the epicurean 
when he pursued it in the enjoyment of all the good gifts of 
God ; nor the anchorite, when he dreamed of it in self-denial, 
self-control and the contemplation of God and things divine ; 
nor the philosopher who sought it in the contemplation and 
discharge of duty ; nor the worldling when he pursued it by 
seeking honestly and honorably all the goods of this life. They 
erred only when they made either theory exclusive of and 
hostile to the other, or carried either into extravagant excess 
or practiced aimless self-denials, as in themselves meritorious. 
None of them are necessarily antagonistic except as either be¬ 
comes exclusive, and there is a measure of happiness, if not its 
totality, attainable under either; but the sum of all attainable 
happiness is comprised only in a union and right practice of all 



170 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


of them. God gives every endowment for active use, and in 
the normal activity of all and their several pursuits, attainments 
and enjoyments consists man’s highest felicity. 

Man is not necessarily lonely or unhappy in the closet or 
in any solitude—certainly not, when he is occupied with high 
thoughts or engrossing studies or pursuits; nor is he necessarily 
free from loneliness and a most distressing sense of freezing 
isolation in society. He who really lifts himself, or imagines 
that he is lifted above the common thoughts, themes, interests 
and pursuits of other men, is commonly, mistaken, or is the 
pervert of his own egotism ; but that very idea, correct or in¬ 
correct, robs him of that interest in, and that cordial sympathy 
for others, which is the very bond of society, and isolates him; 
and this feeling, in the midst of crowds, lifts him apart into a 
mountain of solitude of his own creation. 

“ Whoever thinks too much or too little of himself,” says 
Lavater, “has a false standard for everything.” In either case 
he separates himself from his opportunity for social happiness. 
If he thinks too little of himself, he will be anxious, despond¬ 
ent, ill at ease in any society really lit for him, and to which 
he is really equal; in the other case, either his silent contempt 
will isolate him from his equals, or even his superiors, or he 
will be too exacting or never satisfied with ordinary attentions; 
and, in either case, he will be out of harmony with whatever 
society he enters, a note of discord in it, isolated and solitary in 
the midst of the enjoyments of others. The egotist of pride, and 
the egotist of feeble despondency and self-distrust, suffer equally, 
but in opposite directions and from opposite causes. And 
when alone, he will be no happier, harassing himself in one case 
with vain and boundless aspirations, and with resentments 
against supposed social injustice or inadequate appreciation ; 
and in the other with self-depreciating comparisons with others 
and visions of despondence or despair. But no man is a stand¬ 
ard for another. We differ all. There is but one perfect stand¬ 
ard. Alone or in the crowd, abnegation of self, resolute will 
to know and discharge duty, joy at seeing and making others 
happy, are the sole safe-guards of our own felicity. 

Both solitude and society are nevertheless good in their 
due order and season for him who has the will to extract the 


171 


SOLITUDE, SOCIETY, HAPPINESS, ETC. 

sweets and not the gall of every condition—the one for sober 
retrospection and reflection, deep study and high communion 
with conscience, and with the wise and good of all ages, and 
with the Supreme wisdom, justice and benevolence ; the other 
for cheerful relaxation, mutual improvement and encourage¬ 
ment, to forge new bonds of affection or burnish the old, 
to elicit the ideas of others and to test, brighten and polish our 
own. Wherever a man may be, in society or in solitude, there 
is no real isolation for him, whom neither his own inordinate 
pride, excessive humility, utter selfishness, supreme engross¬ 
ment with his own unutterable thoughts, or excessive, engrossing, 
misplaced, ill-timed or unsocial passion or pre-occupation of 
mind does not isolate—none for him who knows how to take 
his place in the order of nature and universal harmony of God’s 
creation, with a heart free from excessive cravings, bitter repim 
ings, jealousies and hates, and a soul attuned to the divine 
harmonies of the human soul as made by Him. “Make sure” 
says Fichte, “that thou shalt have no fault to find with thyself; 
and thou art accessible to happiness.” And for such, even in 
solitude—that deepest of solitudes of a stranger in the midst 
of dense, eager, crowding, hurrying populations—there is and 
may be beatifying communion with his fellow men. Adjust 
your desires to the inevitable conditions of your ancestral and 
self-created lot, so far at least as not to pine over them, nor 
beat and wound yourself against its present impassable barriers. 
If ambitious, seek to ascend by the Napoleonic highway, the 
Simplon of the Alps of difficulty, and not by impossible feats 
of leaping from crag to crag, only to lie crushed and bleeding 
at their feet. Learn to trust and love, and have faith in and 
resignation to the perfect divine will and law of the all-loving 
father of all, and seek the attainment of every desire through 
study of and reverential conformity to His laws of well-doing 
and success ; and whatever is worth attaining and good and wise 
for you to have, you -will, not to-day or to-morrow according 
to your impatient desire, but in due time attain, in His eternally 
ordained way, if you really seek it in that way appointed by 
His law. 

The only real foe to unhappiness on earth, is the full, perfect 
and harmonious culture, and perfect fruitage and enjoyment of 


172 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


the varied elementary functions of our soul-life, its affections and 
faculties in life’s activities, industrial, economic, instinctive, 
affectional, moral and religious. Not craving, nor suppression 
nor denial, but hopeful, untiring right pursuit, 'final attainment 
and rationally limited enjoyment of their objects is the real key 
to contentment and happiness. Idlers, aspirants, dreamers or 
mere mal-contents, who are not wise learners, pursuers and 
doers, may find a vague luxury of sadness or of hope that is 
fugitive and momentary; but they hold fast to no stable anchor 
of happiness. Ordinarily, as says a German author, “world 
sorrow and self sorrow easily create each other, are transmuted 
into each other, and aggravate each other.” Some cheerful, 
useful, righteous or beneficent occupation is the best antidote 
to this spirit of sadness or discontent. To fulfill God’s law and 
our real destiny and attain true felicity, w6 must be doers accord¬ 
ing to his law of his terrestrial work, and co-workers with him, 
and not his critics nor rebels to his will. And, if we aspire to 
human praise, let our works, not our words, self-esteem or vanity 
praise us: as, if we are worthy, they will surely some time do. 
Submitting to and doing His will and law, man must not 
so do and submit in the spirit of a victim only, if he would be 
happy; but as a priest and grateful usufructuary of this earthly 
temple of the divine law, appreciating all the good gifts of God 
at their just value : of which, however great or little, none are 
of more value than the high intelligence He has given us, the 
conscience which grandly distinguishes us from the brutes, and 
the spiritual faculties which enable us to commune with the 
Supreme, ally us to all spiritual essences, and lift us upward 
to God and Heaven; and, the affections which go forth to inter¬ 
twine with the affections of others, and in turn bind them to 
us with infrangible bonds; and the hope, sure and steadfast, 
of a blessed immortality ; and an unchanging law pointing ever 
the way of happiness here and hereafter. There is no real or 
fixed limit to our mental, moral or spiritual improvement 
and progression, except our own limitation of diligence in pur¬ 
suit ; and, age after age, the things once seen, as through a glass 
darkly, beam in the effulgence of a clearer light; and here at 
least there can be no disappointment. 

In other words, vain dreamers who, desire inordinately 


SOLITUDE, SOCIETY, HAPPINESS, ETC. . 173 

beyond fitness, capacity, diligence, energies or deserving, the 
temporal goods competitively sought by all, ever are and must 
make themselves miserable according to the extent and multi¬ 
plicity of their inordinate desires and excessive aspirations ; for 
temporal things are limited in amount, and the equal share or 
dividend of each could be but small; and, if equally appor¬ 
tioned to all, could satisfy no inordinate craving. The rebellious 
spirit of the malcontent can convert every instinct, affection, aspi¬ 
ration and faculty of his nature, wisely implanted in him to mul¬ 
tiply the sources of his enjoyment, into so many stinging vipers 
that poison the very sources of his being and torture him with 
recurrent and continuous agonies. On the other hand, he, who 
wisely, dutifully and reverently seeks to know and obey God- 
ordained laws and reverently contents himself with a diligent and 
energetic pursuit of the objects of each instinct, affection, faculty 
or power of his nature in the God-appointed way, and is content 
with their gradual and just attainment and moderate rational 
enjoyment, finds no time for the folly of heart-corroding discon¬ 
tent or vain murmuring, and furnishes no food for the irreverent 
spirit of puny rebellion ; but, in his conformity to divine law and 
human duty, realizes the happiness of a life filled and rounded 
up to completeness by the multiplicity of its busy pursuits, 
varied attainments, and multiplied enjoyments thereof. 

But while God has endowed us with so many springs of 
varied felicities, the flood-tide of those springs of blessing, in 
a right condition of society, was never designed to flow for the 
sluggard or the pampered slave of luxury and ease, nor to be 
monopolized by the rapacious or ravenous few, nor to be attained 
by any, except as a recompense of superior energy, skill and 
merit in their right pursuit and attainment; but to be distrib¬ 
uted in their flow equally and impartially to all who approved 
themselves equally worthy of attaining them. Inordinate or 
excessive and exceptional attainment cannot, in the very nature 
of things, be the common lot, and must ever be attendant only 
on exceptional diligence, skill, conformity and obedience to the 
divine law of pursuit and attainment; and generally they who, 
without extraordinary gifts or superior discipline and energies, 
desire inordinately, must by such desire be made more or less 
wretched in the degree of its intensity and obstinacy. 


174 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


Inordinate appreciation of the grandest instincts and their 
terrestrial objects is but a folly and a vanity of vanities, except 
in the wretchedness which, in general, it must produce. What 
is the fame, for which the noblest souls are said to hunger ? A 
word—a breath, which the hero and the sage, and the states¬ 
man and the poet, and the most eminent of saints share with the 
walker, the wrestler, the pugilist, the athlete, the stock gambler, 
the quack, the extortioner, the demagogues, and the parasites of 
power! It is the incense of applause from the vulgar herd of un¬ 
discriminating hero-worshipers, who, heedless of Deity, must wor¬ 
ship some idol or ideal, false or real, of excellence of some kind. 
It is the applause of a little wider circle or a few more years 
duration than fall to the common lot. It is the poor privilege 
of being maligned, assailed, defended, and to have “one’s name 
misspelled in a Gazette !” And, when most fully achieved, how 
few names, whose every utterance in their day thrilled the nerves 
and stirred the hearts of myriads, survive the lapse of a century 
or a generation ? As nations grow older, how the names of 
early heroes sink from their pristine importance on the historic 
page into mere mention, and this brief knowledge of them into 
a dim fable, and finally into utter oblivion? Even in the life¬ 
time of heroes, statesmen, conquerors, philosophers, poets, orators 
and judges, how few are even known beyond the confines of 
their own country or generation ? How few are really “the im¬ 
mortal names that were not born to die ?” Who can deem it 
wise to sacrifice the happiness of a life, the lustrous purity of 
a soul, the approval of conscience, and of God, and a real im¬ 
mortality of bliss here and hereafter to such an illusory immor¬ 
tality as this? How few can even name the legislators, cabinet 
officers, presidents, governors or judges who have held brief 
leases of power in state and union within the century elapsed 
or since our successful war of Independence? The vastest 
acquisitions of material goods, of temporal power or terrestrial 
fame, attend no mortal beyond the grave. The soul alone sur¬ 
vives and is immortal, and its harmonies, the accordant melodies 
of every thrilling affection and faculty, resounding through time 
and eternity, are the refrains of the happiness alike of the years 
of both. And these harmonies have and can have no existence, 
except in and through obedience to the divine law of his soul- 


SOLITUDE, SOCIETY, HAPPINESS, ETC. 175 

nature and its faculties and affections; and this alone brings 
down into his earthly life the Kingdom of Heaven and its 
unpurchasable and imperishable felicity, and extends it into the 
glorious realms which lie beyond the sombre portals of death. 

The right pursuit of every permitted object, of every appe¬ 
tite, instinct, affection, and of those of the intellect, conscience 
and spiritual powers in the right wavs and within due bounds 
is not only a privilege, but a duty. God implants none of them 
in vain or for their mere neglect or suppression. Each has its own 
proper office and function in this life at least. All are motive 
powers and sources of pleasure in their just pursuits, operation 
and sphere; as each and all in their perversion or excessive, 
impatient or vain longings, may become Marahs, or bitter foun¬ 
tains of misery or a curse; or, by their inactivity or enfeeblement 
inflict on earth a moral paralysis of every activity. Man is not 
only formed on earth for an intense and varied activity which 
should constitute him lord of himself and all sublunary things, 
but, by the very constitution of his nature he is incapable of his 
highest happiness otherwise than in and through that varied 
and intense activity of all his powers, to which however he must 
be gradually trained. His affectional, mental, moral and relig¬ 
ious constitution alike, by the wide range of its powers, pursuits, 
and possible enjoyments celestial and terrestrial, proclaim him 
as predestined to superior and unceasing but changeful activities, 
and through them a rational lord of himself and others, and 
not a mere drone. Demosthenes, being thrice enquired of as 
to the essential requisites of an orator, is said to have thrice 
replied “action,” “action,” “action”: and action in the three 
orders of his mental, moral and religious, and instinctive facul¬ 
ties, is also the one great requisite and the very life-blood of 
the happiness of man, and it may be doubted whether there is 
a moment of the idlest hours of waking man when every fac¬ 
ulty is inactive: but the great difference between men is rather 
in this, that the activities of some ran to waste in vague, aim¬ 
less and profitless dreams, while in others they become trained 
and disciplined to concentrated action in practical good works. 
Nor can his utmost activities, however wisely directed or success¬ 
ful, compass all his desires during the longest period of our 
present life, of which we have any knowledge, nor perfect his 


176 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


power or capacity. Does not this fact alone of his actual con¬ 
stitution point out his destiny to be as limitless as the fields of 
science in the universe that seem to be boundless, and as the 
demands of duty everywhere, and the possibilities of the fru¬ 
ition of endless joy in the limitless knowledge of the wisdom, 
power and glory of the infinite Creator who breathed into him 
that mysterious breath of life whereby man became not only a 
body potentially destined to a limitless multiplication of his 
kind, but also a living soul of literally limitless aspirations ? 

But man needs rest, as well as activity. With his varied 
powers and faculties, except through the period of needful 
sleep, that rest is not necessarily found in idleness only. It is 
as well attained in change of laboring faculty or pursuing in¬ 
stinct, and pursued object. When the muscles rest, mind may 
toil. When both begin to flag, the lighter duties of social or 
domestic intercourse, with its gentle -courtesies and tender affec¬ 
tions and innocent merriment and harmless wit, yield a tonic and 
restorative pleasure of which the drone is incapable ; and when all 
these flag or before they are indulged, the spiritual and religious * 
faculties, require a period of agreeable and consecrative activity. 
And no human being, who is not unduly partial to one or a few 
instincts, but is willing to endeavor to pursue all the just aims 
of his life, can have, or has any apology for the rest of total 
indolence; nor need he wear out from any excessive or too con¬ 
tinuous strain of a single class of ever active faculties. Such is 
the happy state of man and the wise provision and benevolence 
of his creator, as displayed in the human constitution. Why 
should not man be happy even here on earth, save for his 
ignorance of duty, and his sin, and willful errors, and self- 
willed associates, that breed his miseries? 



PART SECOND 


SPECIES OF VICES AND VIRTUES. 


L 


























♦ 

















) 



















































CHAPTER XXVII. 


THE INSTINCT OF ACCUMULATION, OR AVARICE. 

Man lias so many appetites, instincts, and passions tempting 
him to use, enjoy and expend earnings or profits, that without 
some powerful instinct prompting him to keep and hoard, he 
would, with all his gains, be a spendthrift and remain on the verge 
of destitution. 62 And it is sad to know, that the greater part of 
mankind are so little restrained by this faculty, or by caution, or 
by sound reason and the moral faculty of conscience or duty in 
their expenditures for self, that, in a life time, they do not so 
train and discipline their energies and self-denial, as to secure 
even a permanent home. 

The sphere and office of this instinct seems to be entirely 
earthly—although it is enjoined upon us to lay up for ourselves 
“ treasures in Heaven”—a work chiefly or solely of our moral 
and religious faculties. It is the spirit of saving and hoarding, 
prompting to both, making man provident, 63 pained by extrava¬ 
gance, waste or loss, and pleased with a permanent increase, 
or gain of desired treasures of whatever kind, useful, orna¬ 
mental or fanciful—books, pictures, lands, stocks or money. It 
is a necessary endowment of man’s earthly life, not alone 
prompting him to acquire, but to preserve and keep, and it is 
the sole prompter of accumulation. Without its restraining in¬ 
fluence and operation, the multitude of our desires, vanities, as¬ 
pirations and ambitions, or any of them, would conduct man only 
in the paths of profusion, prodigality and improvidence. 64 It 
is the chief restraint on these vices. The man or woman feebly 
animated by it, spends as fast or faster than he acquires, lives 
for and in the present, and all the enjoyments, real or imagin- 


180 


VIA VINCENDI MORALIS. 


ary, it can bring; makes little or no provision for the future; is 
heedless of waste, feels above little cares and savings; and, 
whatever his gains or his inherited fortune, struggles always 
amidst the embarrassment of loss, debt and insolvency. And, 
if such men or women are at any time overtaken by disability 
or reverse, it may become true of any of them, that at some time 

“Famine is in thy cheeks! 

Need and oppression stareth in thine eyes, 

Upon thy back hangs ragged misery : 

The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law !” 

Saving and accumulation are, not only the world’s law, but 
a part of God’s law implanted by Him in man’s very nature, 
without a degree of which, he becomes crippled for the dis¬ 
charge of any other duty. 

On the other hand, he in whom it is the ruling passion, 
studies chiefly the arts of gain and accumulation, and may close 
the heart to every human sympathy or pleasure. Gain is his idol; 
wealth is his God. 65 If he is cautious and calculating, yet en¬ 
terprising and of good intelligence, goods, lands, houses, money, 
flow in upon him, seldom or never to leave him, save for his 
own profit. He is like Midas—God has given him the endow¬ 
ment, that he touches nothing that he does not turn to gold. If 
he is largely endowed with intelligence and ideality, he accumu¬ 
lates rapidly, and besides accumulating wealth, he accumulates 
a valuable library, becomes a patron of the arts and sciences, 
collects fine paintings and costly statuary, or beautifies his home 
glebe into a paradise of elegance ; or, if deficient in these faculties 
and ruled by baser instincts or affections and appetites, he 
revels, feasts, and corrupts alike himself and others, with his 
wealth; and, if devoid of rectitude and inclined to secretive¬ 
ness, he seeks the gains of fraud, deceit and extortion ; or, pre¬ 
serving his integrity, he becomes a mere money-grub, devour¬ 
ing insatiably and keeping miserly all values that fall within 
his reach ; he knows not for what or for whom. But if he is 
endowed with fair intelligence, and a just sense of duty and of 
religious obligation, his wealth introduces him into a wide 
sphere of usefulness, and makes him a benefactor of mankind, 
and a promoter of all the useful and elegant arts, sciences, mo¬ 
rality and religion, and great and beneficent public enterprizes 


THE INSTINCT OF ACCUMULATION, ETC. 181 

and institutions. Verily, God looks into the heart, and answers, 
not the formal prayer of the lips, but the deep, real inspiration 
and aspiration of the sonl that seeks and toils aright for the 
object desired, whether that object be terrestrial or heavenly ! 

This instinct, although professedly contemned by the flip¬ 
pant, is in fact, and in its works at least, worshiped by the multi¬ 
tude : and its fruit,' wealth, is in this country, however at¬ 
tained, certainly the most evident basis of social distinctions and 
real power. In form and constitution a representative Democ¬ 
racy, the United States, and each of them, have in fact, become 
within the last fifty years, if not before, conspicuously and really 
a plutocracy ; and the temptation and inducements to get rich, 
per fas aut nefas , have within that time quadrupled in force. 
But this instinct, dangerous and insidious as may be its action, 
is nevertheless, one of the most valuable of man’s endowments 
in his terrestrial condition, and its due and proper manifestations 
are worthy of all honor and encouragement. 

Without it, and without the gains and savings to which it 
impels man, there could be no grand and beautiful things of 
man’s manufacture or creation—none but the rudest architec¬ 
ture, no study or perfection in any high art, little or no progress 
in the sciences, no capital or leisure, no private palaces nor 
magnificent, vast public works or private enterprises, no rail¬ 
roads, canals or other great and costly works of public benefi¬ 
cence ; for there would be neither wealth to patronize the artist, 
nor encourage the inventor, nor capital accumulated to build the 
w T orks, or patronize the arts or inventions, or give men leisure to 
pursue the arts and sciences. Whatever might be man’s moral 
or religious status, the arts of civilization could not flourish; 
and man would be on earth, little better than a rude, ignorant 
savage, or uncultured barbarian. It prompts the desire to ac¬ 
cumulate, preserve and keep property of any and every kind ; 
and its permissive destruction by children, or waste in any way, 
is the very opposite of a right education. It causes the accumu¬ 
lation of means which afford leisure or patronage for literary or 
artistic inventions and excellence, deep studies and great inven¬ 
tions, or high artistic employments. There is and can be, in the 
ordinary routine of man’s life, little or no progress, where there 
is little or no accumulation. The wastes of negligence and 


182 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


ignorance, are as fatal and criminal as willful wastes. Negli¬ 
gence and thoughtlessness no more excuse waste than ignorance 
excuses any other offense. Wherever-you find a very simple, 
plain people, however frugal, not excelling in art or grandeur, 
you find one relatively poor. The desire to be rich is not a 
desire to be quenched or contemned ; but to be ruled. The 
practice of careful keeping and saving of the child’s own little 
properties is to be trained from infancy ; and that of coveting, 
appropriating or begging that which is another’s, must be dis¬ 
couraged. 

It may be a question whether the public should or should 
not forever own all interest in land, except the lessee’s or rightful 
occupant’s usufruct during life and his improvements or addi¬ 
tions, at their fair value; and whether or not there should be 
some limitation to the divisibility or descendibility of great over¬ 
grown estates, or whether such attempted limitation would not 
lead only to the self-exile of the owners and their children to 
other lands and the removal of their investments thither. But, 
without ownership of the fruits of a man’s own industry and 
talents, the impelling force of all the selfish instincts would 
dwindle, and without its descendibility to children, providence 
for them would cease to operate upon parents, and there could be 
no accumulation, and no means for the advancement of a higher 
civilization, except through some communal and industrial 
organization, systematizing, economizing and compelling uni¬ 
form effort, and recognizing the rights of several property in 
dividends and in the individual savings made from them, and 
adapting employments to the genius of its members. But the 
God-given freedom of nature—a freedom subject to the fact 
of man’s craving instincts and to the law of penalty for omis¬ 
sion and commission—the coercion ordained of God—is doubt¬ 
less wiser and more beneficial, with all its attendant ills, than 
mere human rules and coercions could be ; and, in the end, every 
communal effort of every variety must fail, until such time as 
equal breeding, education, paternity, inherited powers and 
faculties shall have made all men and women in their physical 
and mental powers equal, really or practically; or until the 
benevolence which really regards all others equally with self, 
shall have become real and nearly or quite universal. In this 


THE INSTINCT OF ACCUMULATION, ETC. 183 

inequality of disciplined powers, faculties and conditions, lies 
the origin of all inequalities of the world and all the failures of 
communal schemes and systems, from that of the first Chris¬ 
tians at Jerusalem down to those of Fourier, Brisbane, Owen 
and others, to the present time. Man cannot counteract the 
forces of nature, hut must co-operate with them or employ the 
greater to overcome the less force in all the spheres of activity. 
But when that state of the world shall have been reached when 
communism becomes possible through a natural equality in all 
men of powers, faculties, benevolence and justice, without which 
it never will be possible, the question of equality and individ¬ 
ualism or communism in property will either have solved itself 
or will necessarily have ceased to be of any practical moment. 
And, although a perfect dead-level of mankind may correct some 
of the miseries or vices of our present condition, it is very 
certain that the means and incentives to progress and the inten¬ 
ser activities would also be vastly diminished. But under any 
system, an exalted sense of brotherhood or of justice is capable 
of obviating its incidental or accidental evils. That order of 
society which leaves every man free to accumulate or squander, 
to earn and save or to dissipate earnings, that brings to many 
vast fortunes and to others privation and want, has always pre¬ 
vailed in the world, and involves only a like freedom of activity 
of this instinct that attends and has attended every other; and 
they, who fail to attain necessaries or luxuries, have themselves 
only to blame, while they who rightly attain vast fortunes, 
through its right use, set in motion arts and grand and benefi¬ 
cent enterprises otherwise impossible, and are compelled so to do 
to find investment for their gains. 

The desire to accumulate property or wealth, being thus 
inherent in man, its accumulation honestly and without wrong 
or injury to others, is not only a right, but a duty; and all com¬ 
munal organizations, failing to recognize and give practical in¬ 
ducements and opportunities to it by recognizing the right of 
individual accumulation and several proprietorship, are and will 
continue to be mere amiable vagaries or lunacies that can have 
no success or but an evanescent one. The instinct, under any 
system of social or industrial organization, whether individual 
or communal, is the instinct of the individual; and, as such, has 


184 


VIA MORALIS YINOENDI. 


its right sphere of exercise by the individual, and must be 
recognized; and it acts rightly under any and all systems of 
individualism, when it leads any one to the accumulation of 
individual wealth for one’s self or off-spring, by honest means, 
useful toils, studies, inventions, arts and wise economies of time 
and properties, and without fraud, deceit, over-reaching, extor¬ 
tion or taking undue advantage of the necessities and ignor¬ 
ance of those who trustfully deal and must deal with men of 
superior intelligence and information in their own line of busi¬ 
ness ; and it is these abuses of the individual system that need 
to be corrected by right morals, religion and law, 67 but cannot 
be corrected by law, except on the suit of the victim. And, in 
all cases, to effect this by law, the doctrine of Spinosa must pre¬ 
vail ; who, after asserting and establishing his legal rights against 
his own sisters, voluntarily relinquished to them the property to 
which he had judicially established his right. “In a state where 
just laws are in force,” says he, “it is not only the right of every 
citizen, but his duty towards the community, to resist injustice to 
himself, lest preadventure evil men should find profit in their 
evil doing.” 

When and where it prompts to the acquisition of property 
by base practices, vile and degrading condescensions, or fraud, 
chicane, extortion, over-reaching or gambling, or by miserly 
denials of necessary comforts, or proper means of education to 
the family, or just contributions to necessary institutions, it be¬ 
comes the vice of avarice, the low vice of the miser or the crim¬ 
inal. Whatever is so acquired is gained as wrongfully as if it 
had been stolen or forced from its rightful owner. The only 
honest and honorable path to great wealth, that does not ap¬ 
proximate man to the criminal classes, and does not brand him 
a villain, is through the studies that produce world-worthy 
thoughts, or devise great and useful inventions, or by the incep¬ 
tion and successful conduct of great affairs and enterprizes, or 
from superior excellence in some useful art, profession or avoca¬ 
tion in life, which justly commands superior remuneration, and 
by great or superior industry and devotion of bodily and mental 
powers to them, or to any useful business, and by just savings 
and accumulations therefrom ; and the existence of this instinct 
indicates, that whatever is his work or earning, every man and 


THE LOVE OF COMMENDATION OR FAME. 185 

woman should strive to save and accumulate something from its 
rewards, and strive to fit himself for higher compensations 
which would enable him to save more. But all gain by useless, 
degrading or vicious avocations, or by vicious arts, or wrongs 
practiced in useful avocations, is wrong in morals and is an abuse 
of this instinct of daily occurrence. And seldom as any wrongs 
or frauds go into litigation or criminal prosecution, they fill our 
penitentiaries, jails and states prisons ; and they cause the great 
part of the litigation, under the burden of which courts, how¬ 
ever organized, or re-organized, stagger in vain, and in which 
judges perish under the load of excessive toils. 

But when it is the unrestrained master passion, there is no 
atrocity of treachery, fraud or crime to which it may not urge— 

Trade it may help, society extend; 

But hires a pirate and corrupts a friend ! 

It raises armies in a nation’s need; 

But bribes a senate, and a land’s “betrayed.” 

And it hires feeble men or women to self-abasement and 
life-long degradation. 

This instinct may be trained at home from earliest infancy, 
not only by teaching the child to acquire, keep and accum¬ 
ulate with the utmost care its little properties and some portion 
of its monies, and to find a pleasure in ,the amount of increase 
and the good condition of its possessions, but also by gradually 
teaching it to learn the value of things which it has and would 
like to dispose of, and of those which it desires, and a practice 
of exchanging one for another; and in disposing of articles 
made at home in leisure hours by himself or herself, at a profit 
over work and materials ; and by teaching it to dispose of each 
honestly and at its true value, according to its real quality or 
excellence. 

'v 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE LOVE OF COMMENDATION- OR FAME. 

This is not necessarily a purely selfish instinct, especially 
when in combination with an active benevolence or conscientious¬ 
ness, it may seek to deserve as well as to receive just commend- 



186 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


ation, and because in an intelligent effort for applause it may 
really contribute to the welfare or happiness of others. In and 
of itself, the love of praise, that infirmity or spur of noble 
minds, prompts men to seek, rightly or wrongly, in a nar¬ 
rower or broader circle, to please others, and also rightly or 
wrongly to earn the plaudits and approbation of his fellow man. 
Where it is the ruling passion, it may be truly said of its 
votaries— 

“For this they smile, for this alone they sigh ; 

For this they live, for this would freely die.” 68 

It is one of the chief characteristics alike of the votaries of 
fashion and of those who acceptably move in the best society. 
In some of its manifestations outwardly, it is with difficulty 
distinguished from the outward exhibitions of benevolence; 
It wreathes the countenance of its votaries, whether benevolent 
or not, with nature-prompted smiles, calculated, if not practiced, 
to woo and win. It makes habitual, if not formal only, the 
words of kindly welcome, sincere or insincere. It prompts a 
study of gracious words, good and agreeable manners, apparently 
benevolent interest and acts, intellectual vivacity or brilliancy, 
under or without a sense of duty; and puts its actuary upon his 
or her good behavior in society and everywhere. Even where 
no sound reason or real obligation of duty prompts, it is a foun¬ 
tain of courteous words and deeds. 69 It seeks to attain ends by 
flattery rather than of right—as favors, rather than as due. 
In common life, with or without any other object than the 
promptings of its own impulse, it loves to give and take 
praises, and is eager to accept them, without question or 
doubt, sincere or insincere. It is often the sole parent of 
the vice of prodigal or ostentatious living in all ranks and 
conditions of life, of moderate or immoderate costliness of 
raiment, of the follies of fashion and its frequent changes, 
and of all extravagance and eccentricity of pomp and parade, 
when it exists in combination with a love of the beauti¬ 
ful and grand. It cannot tolerate, and is revulsed by re¬ 
proof or correction. In its inordinate excess, it becomes a 
weak point in even an otherwise great character. In the weak, 
the low, and the unprincipled readers of dime novels and Police 
Gazettes, it is led to hunger for the most worthless plaudits of 


THE LOYE OF COMMENDATION OR FAME. 187 

tlie low, the sensual, the vicious, or even the criminal classes. 
In sublimer natures and more capable, it is athirst for honor¬ 
able fame and glory, through great works or high achievements. 
But it may seek the glory of a Washington, Bryant, Irving or 
Longfellow, or it may descend to acquire the glory of a Hero, an 
Alexander, or of the wretch who, to link his name with undying 
infamy, burnt “the Ephesian dome,” the temple of Diana of 
Ephesus, then one of the seven wonders of the world. It may 
lead, through bad associations and native impulses to vice, crime 
and real self-debasement; or it may conduct into paths of un¬ 
sullied reputation, an illustrious fame or a shimmering glory as 
white, pure, lasting and lustrous as that of night’s glorious orbs. 
It may seek the cheap plaudits of the vicious for surpassing reck¬ 
less daring or successful enormity of vice or crime requiring no 
preliminary toils to win it; or it may achieve the applause of 
the really good and great, through high attainments or the 
heroism and grandeur of great and illustrious deeds «md meri¬ 
torious achievements. It cannot rightly be the ruling passion 
in man or woman. It must be ruled, guided and limited by 
sound sense, a good conscience and a supreme reverence for 
divine law ; or, it cannot fail to become an overflowing fountain 
of inconsistency or hypocrisy of character, of weakness, folly, 
extravagance, vice or crime. 

The voice of praise when it is sweetest, the glance of ap¬ 
probation when it is brightest, the act and manner which is the 
most courtly and fascinating, may indicate truly or falsely a high 
appreciation of the wooed. They may be sincere or they may but 
speak the wooer’s or courtier’s knowledge of human nature and 
his or her practice and skill, as an actor, in the scenes of common 
life. The best of all plaudits is not that of our own vanity, or 
of those disposed to minister to it, but that of one’s own, calm, 
scrutinizing reason and conscience. And the true test of the 
worth of all the homage of private life is to be found in the 
upright and sincere general character of him or her who offers 
this sweet incense. They, who are devoid of high moral princi¬ 
ples and purposes, are ever to be distrusted, and even when 
sincere, their praises can be of little value, “ Timeo danaos dona 
ferentes .” I fear the Greeks, even when offering gifts. In 
men and women born and bred in good society, it may indicate 


188 


VIA MOKALIS VINCENDI. 


notliing more than a formal habit of doing and saying pleasant 
things, in which they are trained, which must be received in 
the like gracious spirit in which they are tendered ; but must not 
be over-valued. In others, it may be studiously practiced to 
gain influence, favor and supremacy, with a view to the attain¬ 
ment of some selfish purpose of the flatterer, injurious only to 
the flattered or to some other person, or beneficial to the flatterer 
or some third party. It is the incense of the feeble to the great, 
of the dependent to the patron, of the courtier to the powerful, 
of the'parasite to the rich, of the demagogue to his constituents, 
the vain and giddy multitude on whose shoulders he seeks to 
rise. When habitual, it is too generally to be regarded as 
either formal, in which case even as a mere sign of good 
breeding it is far preferable to indifference or vulgar rudeness 
or awkwardness, or as seeking the weak side of its victim to 
seduce him or her, to the promotion of the flatterer’s, perhaps 
right, or perhaps sinister aims and purposes, and to deeds to 
which the flattered could not otherwise be betrayed ; and as 
against unknown characters it is to be guarded against by the 
wise, even when graciously received. 

But-as one of the many motives to amiable, worthy and 
true words and deeds, it is not only innocent but praiseworthy 
and virtuous, or good and right. As the chief or ruling motive, 
it is dangerous or pernicious. Conscience and reason must sit 
in judgment over its impulses, promptings, temptations, or en¬ 
joyments of gratification, or it may seduce or be seduced 
into follies, vices and crimes. Its quests must be tested by the 
natural and revealed moral and spiritual law of God and of 
duty. It may rightly inspire to all the just amenities, courtesies, 
and reasonable hospitalities of common life, or to seek the fame 
of great and good achievements. It may speak and act frankly 
every sentiment of real appreciation, regard and friendship, the 
utterance of which constitutes one of the attractions of the home 
or social circle. It is not an unworthy aspiration of the true 
patriot, statesman, author or sage, artist or devotee of science. 
It may rightly inspire the student, but never supremely or ex¬ 
clusively, who would ascend the arduous steeps, “ where, fame’s 
proud temple shines afar,” and make him zealous to consume 
the midnight oil in labors to store his mind with the priceless 


THE LOVE OF COMMENDATION OR FAME. 


189 


treasures of time or eternity. It may rightly add fervor to the in¬ 
spiration of the actor, the advocate, the orator or the priest, or 
prompt to achieve wisdom, diligence, order and skill in the affairs 
of common life. In promoting all excellence in high, useful, 
and holy purposes and works, or in ordinary pursuits and 
achievements, this instinct has its just place and office—especi¬ 
ally those right achievements, which cannot be compassed ex¬ 
cept through the consent and willing aid of others. In all 
other aims, spheres and activities, when it is not a sincere and 
harmless courtesy or gratification, it is vain, foolish, vicious or 
criminal, and may be ruinous, or a snare and a delusion, or a 
mere vanity of vanities. In its right action and sphere, it seeks 
to please others and is pleased with praise ; in its blind or per¬ 
verted action, it seduces us to become base flatterers or the slaves 
and tools of cunning and unscrupulous flatterers ; and 

“ That sir, which seeks and serves for gain, 

And follows but for form, 

Will pack when it begins to rain, 

And leave thee in the storm!” 

The path that leads to the acquisition of just plaudits and 
true glory, like every ascending path of success or of duty—and 
a right pursuit of the good opinion of our fellow-men, by de¬ 
serving them, is a duty—is a toilsome, rough and rugged path 
of difficult effort, self-denial, self-control and vigilant devotion 
to right and beneficent purposes and deeds ; and the first suc¬ 
cess in climbing this ascending way, lies in deserving the 
plaudits sought. Of all who seek fame otherwise, if they suc¬ 
ceed by any base or bad means, it can only be said that they 
achieved infamy, and of each that 

“ He left a name at which the world grew pale, 

To point a moral, or adorn a tale!” 

And only of those who seek praise or fame aright, and 
along its more arduous and ascending paths, and in the line of 
duty and its divine law, it is ever really true, that 

“ Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 
To scorn delights and live laborious days, 

Whose honors with increase of ages grow, 

As streams roll down, enlarging as they go.” 


190 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


The only love of praise which is really and steadfastly 
virtuous, is that which seeks to win it by vigilant practice of all 
the gentle amenities of life, and by really good dispositions, and 
the practice of meritorious deeds that worthily win its sweet 
incense, and by keeping ever to the paths of duty and a right 
ambition. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

SELF-ESTEEM, SELF-RESPECT, OR AMBITION, VIRTUOUS, OR VICIOUS. 

This instinct, in its primary function, creates or prompts 
the sense of self-respect and self-elevation, not always based in 
reason or dependent on real worth, but blindly. 70 In its exces¬ 
sive or perverted action, it leads little minds to inordinate arro¬ 
gance and self-conceit, or to the baffled and baffling vagaries of an 
ambition aspiring to what is not for it attainable, and is a source 
only of disappointment, fruitless efforts and misery; and in 
greater minds to an inextinguishable thirst for elevation, power, 
supremacy and domination. It is ever the parent, when it acts 
in harmony with an intelligent sense of duty, of great and good 
enterprises and the most illustrious thoughts and deeds, of 

“ Longings sublime and aspirations high. ” 

It may seek the paths of private or of public life, the tented 
field or the calm arenas of peace. It may toil after great dis¬ 
coveries or great truths, and seek to make them practical and 
reduce them to practice, or it may prompt to planning great or 
useful enterprises, aggrandizing the projector or beneficial to 
mankind, and seek to carry them into effect. It may be athirst 
for dominion, for beneficent purpose or philanthropic ends, over 
the hearts and minds of men ; or over vast realms, either for its 
own gratification or for laudable purposes. Napoleon’s young 
dream of ambition was a great European Republic with him at 
its head as a first consul. It may seek, for selfish and base ends, 
a like dominion and such temporal power as may be attainable 
either by just or vile means; or it may hail the blare of trum- 



SELF-ESTEEM, SELF-RESPECT, ETC. 


191 


pets and the beat of drums, and the wounds and slaughter of 
the battle and the shouts of victory for patriotic or selfish pur¬ 
poses ; or, in the words of another, its victim “ is continually 
feeling himself, fondling himself, exalting himself, excelling 
himself, incapable of escaping or forgetting himself; or he 
is in the constant habit of belittling, because he dislikes them, 
things ordinarily considered important, or aggrandizing, be¬ 
cause he likes them, things usually regarded as unimportant. ” 
Or, without seeking aught, it may rest content with its own sim¬ 
ple conceit of greatness and its own self-esteem; or, even 
though disposed to toil upward in public life, it may in corrupt 
eras, deem the post of honor to be the private station and abne¬ 
gate the effort to rise. Or its victim may prefer, with the pride 
of Lucifer, 

“Rather to rule in hell than serve in heaven.” 

Or it may be admonished to accept, and Christ-like, to prac¬ 
tice the precept, that “ They which are accounted great among 
the Gentiles, exercise lordship over them ; but whosoever shall 
be great among you, shall be your minister, and whosoever 
among you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. ” 
And all must serve, as Joshua served under Moses before he was 
called to the leadership ; and Samuel served in the lowlier offices 
of the Temple, under Eli, before he was called to prophecy or 
to judge Israel. All who would be truly great or excellent 
must by service and study become so. And among the most 
potential of the motives by which the arch-fiend tempted the 
Savior, after he had taken him to the top of a high mountain 
and shown him the kingdoms of the world, was the promise of 
dominion over all of them, if he would bow down and worship 
him. And many, the world over, are falling under the tempta¬ 
tions of this desire. This lust of dominion has, in all times, 
been the overflowing fountain whence have issued the most 
hideous intrigues, cabals, insurrections, deadly contentions, 
wars, civil and foreign, murders, filiicides, fratricides, parricides, 
patricides, and crimes of the deadliest and most sanguinary char¬ 
acter. And there is no man more dangerous in a neighborhood, 
an association, a church or a. state, than the man of vaulting 
unscrupulous and selfish ambition. Whatever he may be in 
private life, he is ever a disturber and a pest, in church, or state, 


192 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


or society, if lie have not patience, self-control, a dominant con¬ 
science, and Sense enough to know his own and others’ proper 
place, and await the summons of God, and of the people, or his 
fellows. Fit or unfit for the assumption of great or little offices, 
he seeks them, not because he is needed to serve in them, but to 
lift himself up; and seeks them by persistent beggary, tortuous 
intrigue, violence or fraud ; and, if he play for great stakes, his 
pawns are men, and the welfare or ruin of enterprises, states, 
kingdoms or institutions. The frivolous and laborious pursuit 
of petty offices may be prompted only by avarice or a sense of 
dependence on them for bread ; or they may also be sought as 
training schools and stepping stones in the way of promotion 
to higher power; and, in either case, the men of little aspira¬ 
tions become the facile tools of the more powerful and great, 
and associate disturbers of the land’s peace. 

But this pursuit of power is but a perversion of the spirit 
and desire of self-elevation or distinction inherent in man; 
which, in its right use, prompts men to excel, to attain a real 
intrinsic elevation and distinction, and thereby best fits them 
to be called to rule, supremacy and dominion in any sphere 
where excellence is required and they have attained it. It is the 
spur alike of noble and of ignoble minds. The former it fits 
for high positions and grave responsibilities in all the more 
exalted spheres of life, to which they are then in proper exigen¬ 
cies necessarily called when needed there; and so, it providen¬ 
tially furnishes men already fitted to do God’s work required in 
all times and circumstances ; the latter, it makes restive under 
superiority of others and seduces into cabals and combinations, 
often successful in ordinary times, to set aside or over-ride 
superior merit or capacity in the interest of self-advancement. 
The former it informs, trains and disciplines, in a work in the 
line of their aspirations, to real excellence. The latter it makes 
skillful, chiefly, to climb; and depraves* to the practice of the 
low artifices of detraction, deceit, bribery and false promises, 
and venality to special powerful interests, whereby he may lift 
himself up into exalted positions, which neither nature nor train¬ 
ing have specially qualified him to grace, and which the very 
practices by which he seeks them declare him unfit to fill. The 
existence of ambitious aspirations for mere place and power, is 


SELF-ESTEEM, SELF-RESPECT, ETC. 


193 


never an augury of either capacity or fitness, or of a true eleva¬ 
tion of character or attainment; but rather that the seeker needs 
the emoluments of the place because of lack of capacity to win 
as much gain elsewhere, or needs the place to honor him and is 
really incapable of honoring the place. Offices of all grades 
should seek the man, and not the man seek the office. Rightly 
aspiring, this instinct secures general or special excellence and 
a nice sense of stainless honor fitting him to grace any position ; 
and, if endowed with a right conscience, he is in every sphere 
of life the Knight “sans peur et saris reproche ”—the Bayard 
without fear and beyond reproach. Basely seeking power and 
place for its own sake it can only debase him by frittering away 
precious time in its pursuit, or degrade him by the low modes 
in which he pursues it. The right ambition, if it accept place 
at all, accepts it in order to apply whatever of excellence it has 
attained to serve those who have demanded his services. The 
vulgar ambition forces itself, or wheedles or bribes itself into 
place, under some vague notion of being or becoming thereby 
elevated above his fellows, and of attaining power or dominion 
over them or some of them. 

“ The fiery soul, abhorred in Cataline, 

In Deems’ charms, in Curtius is divine ; 

* The same ambition can destroy or save, 

And make a patriot, as it makes a knave.” 

This world alone is a great wide world; and wisdom finds 
in it many diverse and wide realms in which, or some of which, 
almost every aspirant may successfully toil for distinction. No 
lives are long enough for the attainment of a perfect mastery 
of a science, art, physical or metaphysical philosophy or states¬ 
manship. One generation and another adds a little to the com¬ 
mon store of knowledge and wisdom ; and the mere empyric, 
who builds on his own experience or genius alone, without 
knowledge of the stores garnered for him by past generations, de¬ 
ceives himself and deceives others, and becomes but a blind leader 
of the blind. To nobly aspire, is not the flutter of the gilded 
butterfly in the meridian sunshine, but the flight on eagle pin¬ 
ions of a noble soul that wrestles to excel. Already in these 
United States, cabals and factions have overthrown the noblest 
of parties and the greatest of leaders. Age, without study, 

M 


194 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


practice and experience, does not necessarily import wisdom and 
excellence. But, that pushing, caballing, unstudious, audacious 
youth supercede in positions that require learning, experience 
and stability of character and principles, the aged and the wise 
and learned, is a portent of evil omen to the states. When ignor¬ 
ance, forwardness, dash, assumption, beggary and charlatanism 
succeed in crowding out modest sagacity and mature learning, 
and when powers are solicited and sought, and accorded to solic¬ 
itation, instead of being proffered only to acknowledged emi¬ 
nence and worth, an era of danger to the community and state 
has come. The canvass for office by paltry solicitation of and 
bargain with the petty bands of office holders and office seekers , 
who move and manipulate ward and town caucusses, ought to 
condemn him who condescends to such solicitation and bargain. 

Veneration or reverence delights in hero-worship, although 
its demigod be but a sham hero lifted up by the false idolatrous 
worship of the worshiper, like the idols of the heathen; but a 
false ambition seeks to be the hero of every field it enters, and 
to desecrate with its image the temple of every heart. KeveT 
content, and insatiable, the higher it climbs, the more intensely 
it clamors “Excelsior.” But there is no ascent too steep, no 
height too high for him who climbs honorably with honest aims 
and beneficent purposes and with full capacity and fitness. 

Although for centuries, wise and learned political philoso¬ 
phers have admitted that, even in monarchical governments, 
the governmental power was based in the tacit consent of the 
people, and that even Kings held their hereditary scepters only 
to serve the people; yet, it is the peculiar glory of American 
governments, that this principle of sound politics and Christian¬ 
ity is, in fact and word, expressly their corner stone, and each 
individual is sovereign and every ruler but serves. 

But this instinct points the way upward and higher than 
to all the offices of the greatest states; and, in its loftiest aim, 
its sentiment and language ever is 

‘•'It is God-like to unloose 
The spirit, and forget yourself in thought; 

Bending a pinion for the deeper sky, 

And in the very fetters of the flesh 

Mating with the spiritual essences of Heaven.” 

And such is the exalted ambition of him, who prefers 


195 


SELF-ESTEEM, SELF-RESPECT, ETC. 

tilings eternal to things of time; things spiritual to things ter¬ 
restrial, the glories of the hereafter to those of this fleeting 
present world, the crowns and thrones of Heaven to the thrones 
and principalities of earthly years, a divine excellence like to 
that of the Creator to mere mortal grandeur. Longings sub¬ 
lime and aspirations high may have an earthly or heavenly 
aspect; and either may be great or grand and good, or evil 
only ; for even the heavenly aspiration, that neglects temporal 
duties, and exhausts itself in self-imposed crosses instead of the 
God-imposed, and in ecstatic dreams and visions, is evil only; 
for man is formed for earth as well as Heaven, with body as 
well as soul, and both declared by their internal constitution to 
be designed for action, and the discharge of earthly duties as 
well as heavenly. Yet he only is assuredly happy, whose aspi¬ 
rations lead upward toward God and his perfection, and the far 
more exceeding weight of glory of the hereafter. The aspira¬ 
tion to be in His image and after His likeness and after His 
excellence, no time nor change, no cabal or caprice, no error of 
judgment or enmity of man, nor circumstance of earth can disap¬ 
point. If aught can purify, inspire, elevate and disenthrall 
the soul of man, and fit it for the best and grandest works of 
Earth and Heaven, it is the zeal to know and be in the image 
of the Wonderful and Wonder working Author of his existence. 
If aught can assure a felicity that no earthly power can destroy 
or disturb, it is a near approach to the source of all pure and 
perfect bliss. If there be any real power in man, it must lie in 
that cultivated intelligence, which not only “sees God in clouds 
and hears him in the wind,” but sees him in all his works, and 
in all the laws simple yet sublime, by which he establishes the 
universe in its constant course, and governs, by an unchanging 
law, the most changeful things of Earth and the real felicity of 
His creatures. The ambition that feverishly and exclusively 
strives for and about only the things of Earth, however great, 
is but a partial, if not a perverted and debased ambition. The 
instinct has a higher purpose and a loftier sphere—to lift him 
and cause him to seek elevation higher than aught that is earthly 
only. The excellence to which it is destined to finally aspire 
is divine, infinite and eternal; while the grandeur of the mightiest 
thrones is but temporary and evanescent. 


196 


VIA VINCENDI MORALIS. 


The man or woman who, instead of cultivating a right am¬ 
bition to excel and elevate himself and his soul faculties, re¬ 
presses all ambition or renders it inert, wrongs himself or her¬ 
self, and impairs one of the greatest and best motive powers of 
his nature. The man, who aspires only as to externals—to 
place, power and social standing, things that ought to be the 
mere exterior insignia of his real excellence—perverts and 
abuses an instinct which ought of right to aspire more no¬ 
bly. The man, who strives chiefly for externals, seldom wor¬ 
thily or permanently attains, holds or rightly employs or enjoys 
them. But to him, who worthily or rightly aspires, all other 
really good things can seldom fail to be necessarily added in due 
time and according to God’s law and the rules of his providential 
government. Man is but an instrument in His hands, to work 
out His wise decrees—but an instrument, so constituted as to find 
pleasure and advancement, or retrogression and penalty, conse¬ 
quent upon every work in which he employs, worthily or un¬ 
worthily, time and faculty. And if such there be, none are to 
be more pitied than they are, 

“Who never felt the impatient throb, 

The longing of a heart that pants 
And reaches after distant good .”? 1 


CHAPTER XXX. 

PRUDENCE, TIMIDITY AND FEAR. 

In a world where peril exists, the instinct of caution or fear 
is necessary to all beings liable to incur danger, suffering, loss 
or injury. The instinct is responsive to perils, real or imagin¬ 
ary—in the brave, to real danger only—in the mentally weak or 
superstitious to a thousand causeless or imaginary ones. It is 
the ordinary vice of those incapables who appear to have no 
defect even of common intelligence; for 

“Desponding fear, of feeble fancies full, 

Weak and unmanly, weakens every power.” 



PRUDENCE, TIMIDITY AND FEAR. 


197 


In its normal and just sphere, it is the parent of intelli¬ 
gent caution or prudence. They, in whom it is inert or defi¬ 
cient, are by nature rash or negligent, and rush into loss or ruin, 
or encounter needless perils or injuries; or, if they avoid them at 
all, are only taught to do so by continuous or reiterated precepts, 
or actual and repeated experience of loss or suffering. But, in 
the affairs of common life, as well as in battle fields, it prompts 
the thought “that the better part of valor is discretion, ” but not 
cowardice necessarily . 72 It induces the measurement of hazards 
and the close calculation of costs ; to building upon the rock and 
avoiding the quicksand. Acting in its just sphere, it never at¬ 
tempts the passage between Scylla and Charybdis, if a safer 
course can be found. As prudence, it is one of the essential 
virtues; and it prompts the commander, even when confident 
of victory, to keep secure his communications and a way of re¬ 
treat. As prudence, it is an indispensable virtue. As fear 
or panic, it is a vice, unmanly and cowardly, a paralysis or a 
torture— 

“And extreme fear can neither light nor fly, 

But coward-like, with extreme terror die.” 

In trivial affairs and cases, or in view of trifling dangers or 
mere shadowy occasions of alarm, its exaggerated terrors are 
often so ridiculous in their manifestations, that few things in the 
world are more comical. As habitual cowardice, it is the butt 
and scorn of the world. 

The most rash need to learn, and do learn, caution in .their 
daily pursuits and avocations; and are most in danger when 
they step beyond them : but the absence of due caution conduces 
to want of vigilance and rashness. The most timid, on the 
other hand, lose some of their timidity when apting in the line 
of their daily familiar duties and activities. Both the too rash 
and too timid are liable to failure; and nature thus tends, in 
every day affairs, to equalization and modification alike of ex¬ 
cess or defect; or in other words, to transmute vice into virtue ; 
for rashness and cowardice are equally vices ; and vigilance and 
prudence only are virtues. This cautionary instinct is the 
mother alike of care, vigilance, prudence, forecast and wisdom. 
Under its prompting, man early begins to 


198 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


“ Look forward what’s to come, back what’s past, 

And so prudence succeeds timidity 
Or rashness. ” 

And wisdom is ever enhanced by the experience of the 
thoughtful, as well as by the teachings of the wise and their 
measures; and, in the headstrong and conceited, by bitter expe¬ 
rience only. But it is far better that docile youth learn the les¬ 
sons of prudence and forecast from parents or competent teach¬ 
ers, than by bitter, painful or crippling experience. 

Prudence seldom ventures into the unknown dark ; and 
even in day’s glare, looks before it leaps. And, as the fear, that 
induces vigilance, calculation and judgment, is necessary in pri¬ 
vate affairs, so the prudence that begets prevision and adequate 
preparation for emergencies, is indispensable to the successful 
leader, statesman, commander, lawyer or minister, and in all the 
affairs of private or public life. 

The timid, who are too indolent to learn and too sluggish 
and cowardly to dare, must always crawl through the thronged 
avenues crowded by their likes ; while the vigilant, the active, 
the enterprising and intelligent soul mounts steadily above the 
common masses of men. No success is of the body or brute 
strength alone. 

But the rash wreck, not only themselves, but all who at¬ 
tempt permanently to sustain them, or link to their undertakings 
their own fortunes. A rational fear, that is not mere shrinking 
from danger, but a clear insight of some real peril, operates as 
an inducement to seek wisdom to avoid it. and is an indispensable 
condition of success. Such fear may consist with the highest 
rational courage and the noblest fortitude in overcoming diffi¬ 
culty or averting danger. 'But, that he knows not, nor ever 
knew fear, is only the idle boast of the bravo, or the charlatan, 
or the misfortune of one idiotic* as to one of the ordinary facul¬ 
ties of humanity. God has implanted the instinct, for the pur¬ 
pose of warding off or fleeing from danger, not only in all ani¬ 
mals, but in all mankind \ and even the fiercest of beasts have 
been cowed by the fixed gaze or other dread of man : and he, 
who knows not what fear is, is as exceptional a monstrosity as 
he would be who could truly declare that he knows not what 
love is : but, of the vice of unmanly cowardice or abject or ir- 


PRUDENCE, TIMIDITY AND FEAR. 


199 


rational panic, every man or woman pretending to be a rational 
being may well be ashamed ; and they are in general without 
it, although some women give way to affectations of such panics. 

Useful and necessary as this emotion is in the common or 
extraordinary affairs of life, it has a higher sphere of activity— 
not as a craven or slavish fear, like that of a slave for a cruel 
master, nor of a subject toward an arbitrary despot, but as a 
rational fear of Him who made and gives fixed immutable laws 
to all worlds and whatever they contain, in whose Infinity and 
wisdom all things literally live and move and have their being, 
whose laws, inherent in the very constitution of their being, all 
must learn and obey, whatever their creed or skepticism : and 
it has its most exalted sphere when it prompts grave thought 
and study of the High and Holy One, who inliabiteth eternity, 
and of man’s earthly and heavenly duties and destiny; and when 
it leads man alike to study and obey those divine laws of his 
being and of the world around him, which are essential to his 
welfare and advancement on Earth, and those other laws obedi¬ 
ence to which can alone, in whatever condition he may be, fit 
him for happiness and to make others happy here and hereafter. 
The very skeptic, who doubts that there is a God or a hereafter 
of woe or bliss, if he be educated, knows that there are invariable 
laws of things terrestrial, knows naught to the contrary of the 
hereafter, and may not be free from absurd fears of unlucky 
days, planetary or lunar influences, omens, auguries, dreams, 
ghosts, hobgoblins or other wretched or perverted notions of the 
supernatural; and yet may assume to question a higher faith 
that inheres in mankind in all ages. And, unless man be mi¬ 
raculously changed at death, for a belief in which there is no 
warrant in nature or revelation, if there be for him a hereafter, 
they who could here neither be happy themselves, nor refrain 
from making others unhappy, evidently can not be permitted 
to enter the realms of bliss. And, a rational fear of the Power 
that rules, creates, and can annihilate what he has created, and by 
the necessary operation of whose laws man’s destiny may be 
unalterably fixed for eternity, cannot but prompt to a diligent 
studv of His will or the laws that most affect alike man’s ter¬ 
restrial and celestial being and happiness. 

Elsewhere it has been argued that a world designed for 


200 


VIA MOKALIS VINCENDI. 


intelligent beings must be a world governed by laws which intel¬ 
ligence may discover. It is an ascertained fact that the world 
in which we live, is a world of law, in which all things have the 
law of their constitution and relation and disease or decay and 
dissolution impressed upon them from the beginning. The 
chemist employs all his days in studying this law in its operation 
on matter. But a world of law, however safe to beings who 
have no freedom of will and are the slaves of unerring instinct, 
is ever a world of danger to beings endowed with free will. 
And, hence, in such agents especially, there needs to exist an 
instinct of fear or caution to warn them of danger in the un¬ 
known or the unexplored, before they can study and learn what 
law or what danger really there awaits them. It is the instinct 
of circumspection and conservatism in all things, until sound 
knowledge and judgment combine to urge an advance. For the 
world in which we live, being in its every occupation full of dan¬ 
ger in varied forms and from many causes, and requiring caution 
and prudence during our entire lives, this instinct performs the 
office of generating the apprehensions that urge to inquiry ; 
and then these virtues of prudence and Providence guard and 
secure the way ; and it is to that extent a moral emotion. And 
wisely or unwisely, in the most ignorant and unreasoning, or in 
the sage and philosopher, it prompts rational or irrational fears 
all their days : while in the latter especially, it prompts to study, 
learn, ascertain and know what dangers really exist, and to con¬ 
front them with proper armor, or to avert or avoid them, as cir¬ 
cumstances may require. And, when only it becomes so en¬ 
lightened and elevated as to fear God and all His laws and their 
dread penalties supremely, it becomes an exalted religious senti¬ 
ment, prompting all true wisdom, duty, obedience, praise and wor¬ 
ship. Hot thus enlightened, it sinks into timidity and supersti¬ 
tion, and is a vice that may throw away God-given opportunities 
by shrinking from every peril and from every unexplored sphere 
or shadow of danger imagined; which, if really existent, might 
be easily avoided, guarded against and overcome. It is the very 
opposite of the spirit of enterprise. Yet where the utterly 
fearless, if such there be or ever were, would utterly perish 
through defect of a sense of danger, the cautious and prudent 
would acquire and practice wisdom and become sagacious. 


PRUDENCE, TIMIDITY AND FEAR. 201 

And so “ the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom ”—not of 
cunning, artifices and duplicity often so deemed, but of true 
wisdom both in the secular and religious sense, and alike in the 
affairs of this world and every other. And, so in relation to 
terrestrial things and the affairs of business, is it also the parent 
of that prudence and wisdom, which comprehending that there 
is and must be a law for all affairs and things, impels the intellect 
to learn and conform to the law of things temporal; and in spir¬ 
itual things it compels the intellect to study, learn and know, and 
the will to conform to the law of things spiritual: and any fear 
that does not so prompt the will is vain and cowardly only. 

And it may have also a vicious as well as a meritorious 
activity in each sphere, as where it prompts to the suppression 
or concealment of right views of duty or action accordant 
therewith, or to denials or falsifications of truth. 

They, in whom it is vicious or .in excessive or perverted 
action, find Gorgons and Chimeras dire everywhere; and are 
apt to have little faith in themselves, or in others, or in God; 
and they usually become the prey of incessant anxieties, and 
are naturally pessimists in everything: and they need to moderate 
this spirit by cultivating closer calculations in their earthly affairs, 
and a higher faith in God, His laws, justice and Providence ; 
and they must remember and strive to put in practice Milton’s 
philosophy in Comus— 

“ Peace, brother! Be not over-exquisite 
To cast the horoscope of uncertain evils; 

For grant they be so, while they rest unknown 
What need a man forestall his date of grief, 

And run to meet what he would most avoid 1 ” 

But a cautious person can scarcely fail to foresee prospective 
evil, and to study and prepare possible ways to avoid or avert 
it: and this is a right use of the instinct and a duty: while the 
indulgence of a harrassing and helpless anxiety and despair, is 
a vice depraving heart, hope, faith and courage, and impeding 
intellectual effort and final success; and tends to the realiza¬ 
tion of the worst fears— 

“ Cowards die many times before their death— 

The valiant never taste of death but once. ” 

And this anxiety is not only a vice of character, but a sin 
against the great and loving Father, who endows all with intel- 


202 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


ligence, not only to foresee evil or peril, but also to study ways 
to avoid and avert it; to Whom, all faith and trust is due, 
whether we be pagan or Christian or neither. The presence or 
approach of danger or evil requires, not feeling or distress, but 
energized intelligence to find ways to surmount it. 

But, perhaps, the worst exhibition of this vice of cowardice 
as to this world’s affairs, because the most common one, is when 
it leads weak people to abstain from living within their means, or 
from doing what they ought to do, or from omitting or refusing 
to do what they ought to omit doing, through fear of foolish criti¬ 
cism or malignant sneer of evil or jealous companions; or, when, 
by the same foolish fear of the lawless, wicked and godless, they 
condescend to actual falsehood, conformity to the false or other 
criminality. But every perverted fear, or fear in excess of 
rational prudence, endangers its subject, and becomes a vice and 
snare as to the timid person, his family, and is criminal toward 
his God. 

Fear not modestly, but resolutely, to go and do where and 
what duty calls upon you to do or dare, and like David to em 
counter Goliaths of difficulty or hazard, if need be. But go 
armed and prepared against every peril of the way which it is 
possible to foresee and prepare against: but first consider in every 
matter of business, whether u le jeu vaut la chandelle ”—The 
game is worth the candle. Such seem to be the duties indi¬ 
cated by the instinct of fear implanted in intelligent beings— 
not to make them helpless or wretched, but to enable them, by 
foreseeing and preventing ills, to assure their safety and happi¬ 
ness— 

“ He knows the compass, sail and oar, 

Or never launches from the shore ! 

Before he builds, computes the cost 
And in no proud pursuit is lost. ” 


THE SPIRIT OF RESISTANCE AND COMBAT. 


203 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

THE SPIRIT OF RESISTANCE AND COMBAT. 

No one can live long in the world and not learn that any 
one must encounter difficulties, dangers, wrongs and oppressions, 
in it, that he must combat and overcome. To this end, man, 
as well as other animals, is endowed with an instinct of com¬ 
bativeness, which quickens the soul to resist, and to overcome or 
surmount difficulties, dangers, enmities, oppressions and injus¬ 
tice ; and 

“The brave man is not he who feels no fear, 

For that were stupid and irrational ; 

But he, whose noble soul its {'ears subdues, 

And bravely dares the dangers nature shrinks from.” 

The instinct of courage, in its primary form or lowest office, 
is the instinct of self-defense; in its higher activity and power, 
it becomes aggressive, and is the champion of all right and the 
assailant of all wrong. “ Est omnibus a Natura tributum , se 
suosque tueri ”—It is an attribute of all to defend themselves 
and their own—said the greatest of Roman orators in his work 
on Duties many centuries ago : and it needs neither prophet nor 
sage to learn that lesson. Even the meanest insect, when 
trodden upon, strives to retaliate upon him who treads upon 
it, if opportunity be given. The spirit of self-defense is the 
spirit of combat; and in its inordinate action it becomes the 
spirit of unjust and inconsiderate aggression. It is an essential 
element of any great character : but, in the really great, it never 
descends to low or trivial contests—a giant in a pigmy’s warfare. 
It prompts the untiring conflict with gigantic obstacles, and 
gives inspiration of ability to surmount them ; while fortitude 
gives steadiness and unwavering persistence in the conflict. 
And in all this rightful sphere, it is a cardinal virtue. It is 
essential to bold, heroic statesmanship, and daring reformers 
and patriots. It nerves the soul and arm of the soldier, who 
achieves victory over appallingly superior numbers and arma¬ 
ments, and often wrenches it from the jaws of impending defeat. 
It animates the commander, who fights in the van sturdily or 


204 


VIA MOEALIS VINOENDI. 


leads the forlorn hope; and in the last supreme endeavor fights 
in the post of most imminent peril, 

“ Commanding, aiding, animating all 

Where foe appeared to press, or friend to fall. ” 

It was not alone, however, the inspiration that energized the 
conflict of the immortal three-hundred that withstood the mil¬ 
lions of Xerxes in the pass of Thermopylae. It must animate him 
who is fit for leadership in any cause. It needs guidance, direc¬ 
tion, principles of action or inaction, not extinction or suppression. 
He, who is devoid of it, or in whom it is feeble or inert, is 
scarcely capable of handling the distaff, and is fit only for 
luxury, wantonness, ease or feeble dalliance with affairs, in which 
there is neither peril, difficulty, rivalry nor conflict. The difficul¬ 
ties and oppositions of common life, as well as of the grander 
dramas of existence, overawe and appall him in whom it is weak ; 
for they demand this spirit in him who would vanquish them. 
Without it, a half effort or a single rebuff, ends the combat, 
and induces a surrender. It is essential to any vigorous awe¬ 
inspiring defence of one’s self, the home, helpless or feeble 
dependents, or property, and to awe back the offender, or him 
who would invade right. It gives promptitude in meeting and 
overcoming menaced or actual assaults. There is no possible 
employment or avocation of life that does not demand it. It 
has ordinarily, in even common life, a far higher and nobler 
sphere of activity than mere dialectics, or pugilistic encounters, 
or even the deadly field of slaughter, where nations stand em¬ 
battled. It may work before the law, through the law, or with¬ 
out the law, where no law provides a remedy. Its office every¬ 
where is to maintain and defend rights, our own and others, 
wherever, whenever and by whomsoever imperilled, menaced 
or assailed. It is essential to a firm, upright and consistently 
religious character—to him who combats temptation from within 
or without, or error or wrong anywhere. It animates the per¬ 
sistent struggle, or the fitful and occasional effort, to conquer 
difficulties or repel danger or menace. In an age of error—and 
what age has not been such an one—it must inspire the votaries 
of truth. In all the spheres of public and private life, and in 
every combat against error, vice, folly, despotism, individual or 


THE SPIRIT OF RESISTANCE AND COMBAT. 205 

national wrong or oppression, it is a needed virtue. In all 
promptings to wrongful or trivial contentions, it is a vice or a 
nuisance, that disturbs private peace or public order. It is the 
spirit 

“ That conquers difficulties 
By daring to attempt them,”— 

difficulties from which men or women of non-combative souls 
shrink as from the impossible, or convert into real impossibilities 
for them. 

The man highly endowed with this faculty may know fear, 
but practically knows not despair, and scorns surrender. Often 
baffled, or disappointed, or defeated, moving on the very brink 
of the gulf of despondency perhaps, in a worthy cause, he or 
she returns again and again Titan-like to the attack, until, as 
with the Bruce, victory crowns the endeavor. It is especially 
required in a high degree in the lawyer, the soldier, the reformer, 
the general and statesman, who aspires to great or good deeds 
or high offices with narrow means, and to all the professions and 
pursuits, which involve necessarily conflict for one’s self or 
others : and it is necessary, in a quiet and unostentatious way 
and form, in the clergyman who would build up, not a mere 
congregation, but a spiritual, vigorous, united and aggressive 
church. It, united perhaps with policy, is in force and well-gov¬ 
erned intensity in all, who, with seemingly inadequate influences, 
means or resources, lead successfully in great enterprises, and with 
an originally slender following, achieve great triumphs. No 
frowns, nor menaces, persecutions nor darkness, nor clouds, nor 
storms terrify, and no odds appall, the highly combative, to a 
final relinquishment of a great warfare. They but intensify the 
activity of this instinct. The greatly endowed may temporarily 
bend to, or seek shelter from the fury of the storm; but, slowly 
and cautiously, it may be, and calculatingly, and step by step, 
they again advance the banner of right, or the completion of 
enterprise, until all is attained by them, which God gives them 
the ability to attain ; perhaps fairly initiated or progressed by 
them and finished by other generations, like the anti-slavery 
agitation begun with the very installation of the federal govern¬ 
ment and finished in our own day; or like the building up of 
great cathedrals or enterprises, cities or nations, or other great 


206 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


works ; or like tlie advance of Christianity, now in this nineteenth 
century of the Christian era, still progressing and still incom¬ 
plete. And, during all this long, arduous and protracted progress 
to a final victory, if this instinct knows weariness or discourage¬ 
ment, it never finally succumbs to them, unless faith in the 
object or its attainment finally deserts the toiler or militant. 
How many great, generous spirits, in all man’s generations, have 
thus waged heroic warfare with adverse circumstances and con¬ 
ditions, like Columbus in quest of the new world, with little 
personal remuneration, even down to their dropping into the 
narrow house of the grave ! And what a halo of transcendant 
glory must illume their martyred, self-immolating, world- 
immolated souls and spiritual bodies in the endless hereafter! 
There are in the world, martyrs of other faiths than those of 
religion! 

This combative instinct is never to be repressed or extin¬ 
guished, but ought to educated, judiciously encouraged, and 
practiced, guided and * directed aright. And, it may be so 
directed from infancy; for even the creeping infant finds diffi¬ 
culties in its way to conquer. Logomachies are unworthy of it, 
as are also petty contentions among friends, neighbors, associates 
or relations about trifles. There it is simply disagreeable and 
disgusting ; and the closeness of relation gives most numerous 
occasions for its petty exhibitions. Its proper realm is in the 
high spheres of public or private interest, duty, truth, benefi¬ 
cence, patriotism and true religion, obedient to their every 
summons and requisition, and indefatigable there, whether these 
duties concern ourselves, our own or others. It is never offen¬ 
sive, disagreeable or dangerous, except in its perversions or 
brutish or unintelligent indulgence. It is God-given, and the 
world, in which man exists, requires the full employment of 
its functions and energies, in every land and in every condition 
and business of life, both for the protection and advancement 
of the individual and of the public welfare. Man ward, its sole 
just offices are the reformation of the offender through the power 
of the benevolent, moral and intelligent faculties, and of educa¬ 
tion ; and, these failing, by any other means not criminal nor un¬ 
lawful. 

Rashness is courage, or this spirit of combat, unwarned by 


THE SPIRIT OF RESISTANCE AND COMBAT. 207 

caution, or ungoverned by calculation and forecast, and impelled 
by dominant hope and aspiration alone. This is a perversion 
or excess of the combative spirit; and it is a crime deeply 
injurious alike to the actor and those who confide in him or aid 
him : and, in high stations of command, it is always disastrous 
to a people or often fatal to a state. It leads little Napoleons 
into wars like the last war between France and Germany; or 
involves Laws and Villards in untimely enterprises that must 
wreck their initiators and others, their supporters, even when 
finally successful! 

But true courage is, nevertheless, appalled by no dangers 
attending the attainable that is worth the combat. Dangers 
but arouse and stimulate the spirit of resistance, to intensify 
study of the ways and means of averting or encountering and 
overcoming them—the first study being to avert, the last to 
overcome. It arms itself for new emergencies as they are fore¬ 
seen or appear. It calculates, in advance, the cost and duration 
of its campaigns, the powers of resistance to be overcome, the 
forces required to overcome them: all the means of success and 
all the means of assuring safety in the case of present failure or 
defeat. It is never hasty ; although, with a quick and rightly 
equipped intellect, it may be rapid even where danger or oppor¬ 
tunity is sudden and imperious. When guided by wisdom, it 
is deliberate in preparation, approach and armament; and, if 
necessary, politic; although, when the opportune moment 
arrives, it may seem to strike with the startling suddenness of 
the thunderbolt. “It vaunteth not itself and is not pufied up.” 
The bravo and the boaster may have courage; but it is shallow, 
superficial, fit only for low exhibitions, and not to be relied on 
in real or great emergencies. Yanity may court, but true courage 
does not seek needless contest or danger; and, although its pos¬ 
sessor may, like many a good soldier, shrink at first from real 
perils, he takes no step backward from any peril worth the facing, 
unless it is seen to be insuperable. But the cravens, 

“Through their own sloth or folly 
Shiver, and sink at sight of toil and hazard, 

And make the impossibility they fear! ” 

Courage, or this spirit of combativeness, under just regu¬ 
lations, is, with fortitude or perseverance, the backbone of every 


208 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


other virtue, without which it is inane or negative, and inefficient 
for any assured influence for good : for virtue here must contend 
against vice and good with evil. It is, in a virtuous character, one 
of the most necessary virtues. Its absence or deficiency, or its 
perversion to petty, causeless or unworthy contests, is a weakness 
or a vice. A rash man is dangerous to every associate. A man 
of true courage, is, under God, a sword and shield for himself 
and all who trust in him. He towers above the common herd 
of virtuous and equally intelligent men. Heither the threats 
of power, nor the frenzy of the populace, if a man be conscien¬ 
tious and God-fearing, awe him from the right: nor is he likely 
to encounter rashly, hopelessly or ostentatiously the populace 
or power. He paves the way studiously, toilsomely, step by step, 
day by day, or perhaps year after year, for successful action ; 
and, when he acts, a final success is well nigh assured, and the 
spirit of jealousy, menace and clamor rage in vain, or are awed 
into silence. And one of the chief impediments to the success¬ 
ful conduct of ordinary business is in its too ambitious inception ; 
or in the absence of this toilsome, studious and gradual prepara¬ 
tion for or prosecution of it. 

The vulgar courage, that encounters blows and wounds and 
physical injuries and death, to avail aught with certainty, must 
be ever moved and inspired by, and needs the direction of 
this highest courage of the seer, the statesman, the hero, the 
sage or the saint. The former is largely or purely instinctive— 
the other partakes of the inspiration of Him, who is the light 
and life of the intelligent soul: and this shrinks from no 
peril, no contumely, no suffering, which man’s temporal power 
can inflict, when and where truth, honor and duty demand the 
sacrifice . 73 

This heroic spirit of combativeness must not be confounded 
with that sudden impulse of anger, resentment, or injured pride, 
which gives blows or dares the petty combat on the impulse of 
the moment. The lowest of the brute creation does the same 
according to the measure of its ability and means of offence; 
and this mere animal wrath or the courage born of it, is as far 
below human courage or heroism, as all animals are in general 
or specific attributes, inferior to man. Often it is wiser and 
more courageous to restrain impulse and to overcome evil with 


THE SPIRIT OF RESISTANCE AND COMBAT. 


209 


good. The want of ages, business, societies and peoples is, that 
there be less of this mere instinctive or brutish courage or corn- 
bativeness, or that it be elevated to or supplemented by that 
which is more peculiarly human and rational. And in this 
amelioration the present century has made a marked advance. 
In eras of anarchy without law, the merely instinctive courage 
of impulse may have had its uses, dangerous as it is : but its time 
has gone by, and it is not now a need of highly civilized, law- 
ruled societies. But all ages and peoples have need of the spirit 
of combat or higher courage to animate leaders and people, alike 
when it is needful to act, or when it is needful or wise to restrain 
the impulse to combat, and refrain from combative words or 
actions. For combative words beget like deeds. It is, the 
parent alike of bravery, and when aided by other instincts, of 
self-controlling and self-repressing prudence and discretion. It 
raises man toward a clearer likeness to the divine Wisdom, which 
decrees and does naught that is not prompted by its own omnis¬ 
cient wisdom and beneficence. The prophets of Israel often 
hunted for their very lives; the martyrs of scientific truths, like 
Galileo and Harvey; the martyrs of religious faith, whose 
blood became throughout the successive ages the seed of the 
•church ; the militant or martyr leaders of reform, like Huss and 
Waldt, Luther and Melancthon, Calvin and Cranmer and 
Ridley and Latimer, sanctify this instinct to the service of God 
.and man ; the statesman, who declines or descends from the seat 
of power, rather than execute the crazed will of potentate or 
populace; the sage who, as the teacher of a true philosophy, is 
condemned to drink the deadly hemlock; the soldier, who falls 
combating for the right, are the most illustrious and shining 
examples of this courage or combativeness. And ever along the 
path of man’s generations, alike in the spheres of public life 
•or in those of private conduct, 

“There's a warfare, where none but the morally brave 
Stand nobly and firmly their country to save— 

'Tis the war of opinion, where few can be found, 

On the mountain of principle, guarding the ground, 

"With vigilant eyes ever watching the foes, 

Who are prowling around them and aiming their blows." 

And, so long as a country has statesmen, who are more 
desirous to know what is right, rather than what is popular, who 

N 


210 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


array themselves in the interest of justice and the people at 
large, and not in that of partial but powerful special interests, 
potential to advance their interests in return, and who are more 
willing to fall combating for the right than to rise by base 
subserviency to wrong, folly and class interests, it is sure to be 
free, prosperous and happy, if its people are intelligent enough to 
sustain them. But, when rectitude and true courage are sup¬ 
planted by venality and mere selfish aims and dissensions, fac¬ 
tional contests, and erring and disordered combativeness, policy, 
craft, or timidity ; or when mere facile fraud-wrought successes 
become the tests of statesmanship, its prosperity cannot fail to 
be checked or arrested, even if wreck or ruin do not speedily 
ensue; or it may fall like the Jewish state, with its own factions 
slaying each other, while a most formidable common enemy 
thunders at the gate and ravages and spoils the land. 

“Defendere debiles, debellare superbos ”—to defend the weak 
and to make war upon the haughty—was the maxim and life¬ 
long practice of a great Homan and of the Homan state in its 
day of greatest aggrandizement and glory : and it is a practice 
eminently worthy of emulation by the great and magnanimous 
spirits of all ages and lands. 

Among the first of parental and educational duties, is, not 
to suppress, but to direct aright this spirit of combat, first to 
contend against and overmaster the little difficulties of the 
child’s life and studies; and then to teach him or her, not to 
indulge this instinct in little scrimmages, but to use it to resist 
wrong and combat difficulties, and to contend against and con¬ 
quer his own temptations, of whatever evil nature, whensoever 
they beset him ; and then inspire the child to know, understand 
and practice in its daily life, if possible, no other spirit of com¬ 
bat than this noble and exalted courage. And, from the begin¬ 
ning, he must practice, not to give way to difficulties, evil 
deeds, evil solicitations or counsels, or evil examples; but to 
resist evil and overmaster hardships, and to overcome the former 
by generous, magnanimous and brave deeds, and the latter by 
persistent and courageous toil. And so 

“ Heaven’s immortal spring shall yet arrive, 

And man’s majestic beauty bloom again, 

Bright through the years of Love’s eternal reign. ” 


FIRMNESS, FORTITUDE OR PERSEVERANCE, ETC. 


211 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

FIRMNESS, FORTITUDE OR PERSEVERANCE, AND WAYWARDNESS 
OR OBSTINACY. 

This instinct may exist where there is little of the combat¬ 
ive spirit or spirit of wrath : or it may co-exist with both or 
either. It is a more passive virtue than the combative or re¬ 
sentful instinct; but it gives even greater persistence in right or 
wrong, or in caprices or irregularities; and may consequently 
act viciously or virtuously. When it gives persistence in follies, 
vices, crimes, irreverence of just authority, disobedience of pa¬ 
rents and tutors, disregard of law and order, or of God, it is the 
vice of waywardness or obstinacy; and its victim is mulishly 
the slave of his lower animal appetites or instincts, and is 
dangerous. 

Rut despondence, outcries and tears are natural to some; 
but are childish, foolish and vain. Weakness and indecision, 
in all arduous undertakings can but mar them. A robust forti¬ 
tude must aid to bear up alike the burden of work, the onus of 
conflict and the weight of woe. He, who weakens, and seeks 
only to tread the flowery paths of dalliance and ease, whatever 
may be his rank, education or fortune, but invites calamity and, 
ordinarily, can worthily accomplish little. Persistent toil must 
keep what toil has won. “Facilis descensus Averni ”—the down¬ 
ward ways of life alone are easy. He who would hourly, daily, 
yearly, climb the rugged paths “where Fame’s proud temple 
shines afar; ” or carve a road to fortune or to rank, or ascend the 
steep and narrow way that leads to virtue, God and Heaven, 
must have and cultivate this instinctive and rational virtue of 
firmness or fortitude, to give constancy, steadiness and firm en¬ 
durance to all his best faculties and endeavors, and a consistency 
to his life and actions that shall yield to no despondence, weari¬ 
ness, seduction or peril. 

As waywardness or self-will is born of firmness, acting in 
conjunction with evil, low or perverted passions, and a want of 
sense and of the higher moral faculties, so real fortitude and 


212 


VIA VINCENDI MORALIS. 


perseverance are the products of firmness, acting together with 
or in subordination to sound sense and the higher moral and 
spiritual faculties. Not they that profess to be, but they that 
really are born of God—not they that vaunt themselves good 
and great, but they that have the constancy and fixedness of 
good and intelligent character, really become re constituted in His 
image. 

The real constancy of a virtuous fortitude cannot come of 
that education which makes easy the paths of self-indulgence 
amid the seductions of varied attainable pleasures, and generates 
a habit of constancy in naught but their enjoyment. The 
church well ordains fasts as well as feasts. The vices of obsti¬ 
nacy, waywardness and self-will in every kind of self-indulgence 
are alone so trained, unless a great moral and spiritual power 
and a great power of intellect, which knows and strongly wills 
to do what is right, be superadded. True constancy and firm 
patience are generally trained only in the schools of self-denial 
of things within our power, and of self-control as to them, and 
are born of the struggles that labor from childhood to master 
difficulties, and that toil from the beginning along the ascend¬ 
ing paths to excellence, reputation and God. Trained by the 
practice of self-denial, firmness becomes the constant aid to that 
spirit of self-sacrifice, and ability to see and do the right, even 
to one’s own injury, loss or suffering, which is one of the elements 
of character constituting the hero of common life. It is essen¬ 
tial to him, who entertains and holds fast opinions at variance 
with the popular creeds of his day, if he would live according to 
his conscience and ability, and not the fickle, multitudinous 
fashions of others : for without firmness or fortitude, even con¬ 
science‘and the spiritual endowments are chamelion-hued, lax 
and unstable. Without it, even a Peter may deny his Lord, or 
a Cranmer recant his faith; and man is like the wave, tossed too 
and fro. With it Galileos and Pauls may welcome the prison 
cell, and even a Christ-denying Peter, in after* years, the cross 
of his Master, in fact and literally. It is one of the high charac¬ 
teristics of all the martyrs of Christian theology, or political 
or scientific creeds, who have left shining examples of life and 
death to the world. It is the spirit, without which, in times of 
seductive allurement, persecution or peril, no man can, without 


FIRMNESS, FORTITUDE OR PERSEVERANCE, ETC. 213 

the special grace of God aiding him, act upon his own convic¬ 
tions of duty, if the latter are repugnant to those of the masses, 
or under the menace of the mob or of those in authority. It gives 
to its possessor and to his virtues the stability of the rock, 
agamst which the waves of popularity or persecution alike dash 
in vain. It was a leading characteristic of those stern puritans, 
resolute in their non-conformity to the established church and 
creed, who twice exiled themselves from civilized homes to 
finally begin anew the life of the Godly, as they conceived it, 
amid the rocks of Plymouth, in mid-winter, in the midst of an 
unbroken wilderness, and among savages as wild as the wilder¬ 
ness they trod. And, while it is true that 

“ True fortitude is seen in great exploits, 

That justice warrants and that wisdom guides; ” 

And that in high spheres it shines illustrious to an admiring 
world; and equally true, that, in natures athirst for fame and 
power, it is easier practiced in great arenas and by great actors 
for right or wrong : yet its general training school and its more 
frequent and more difficult scene of activity is in the lowlier 
regions of common life, hidden from the public eye. God has 
not reserved the practice of any virtue for mere public exhibi¬ 
tions or grand and stately occasions. He, who awaits such oc¬ 
casions for their practice, is a dreamer, who never fits himself 
for the great occasion when it comes; and never practices them 
at all. In all the daily walks of our common life, the occasion 
and the duty meet. From the infant school, the household, the 
counter, the office, or the farm comes the hero, fitted for the needs 
of great occasions. A Cromwell was but a country gentleman, 
and a Washington but a surveyor and planter in the beginning; 
and Christ and his apostles wrought all their great works in 
the spheres of common life and among the common people. 
The man dignifies, if he does not create the occasion: but the 
occasion can not dignify the unworthy. He, who daily and 
hourly arms himself with fortitude to endure and overcome all 
the little or great trials of the household and of his business, 
and to keep himself unsoiled by the seductive allurements and 
constant temptations around him, and accustoms himself to bear 
all the scoffs and scorns of his outrageous fortune, is already a 
hero; and great occasion, if he have already ability, only is 


214 


VIA M0RALIS VINCENDI. 


needed to introduce him as such to an admiring world. That 
great occasion may never come: but he is not, therefore, less 
heroic, save, perhaps, in the world’s estimation. 

It may be the author of resolute self-indulgence: but it is 
also the instinct of self-sacrifice. Cheaper sacrifices—peniten¬ 
tial sacrifices, sin offerings, burnt offerings and peace offerings 
were once accepted as sacrifices for sin. But now, since the 
great Master hath lived and died, tempted as we are, yet with¬ 
out sin, a life of constant sacrifice of all the lower elements and 
enjoyments of his nature, in order to do and in doing the works 
of His moral and spiritual nature, and a like constancy of spirit 
in man, must offer up a like sacrifice of himself on the altars of 
duty and of God: and this is his only reasonable sacrifice: and 
to this, great firmness in constant activity is required. In other 
words, “ To obey, is better than sacrifice ! ” 

Awakening and impatient appetites and desires early mani¬ 
fest themselves in the child’s wayward willfulness. Incapable 
of wise judgment and wise control of himself or herself, and 
ignorant of his or her own nature and the parent’s circum¬ 
stances, he or she becomes more and more resolute and impa¬ 
tient to indulge self, and to do and have what any others do 
and have who live around them. That is the earliest manifes¬ 
tation of self-will, unless it may have begun to manifest itself 
in the willfulness of the suckling. Failing into evil associations, 
or into associations with the indulged, elegantly attired and 
sumptuously supplied offspring of the rich, the vain, or the ex¬ 
travagant, the impatience of the child rises into insubordination 
and a more or less frequent yielding to inordinate or vicious 
self-indulgence, limited only according to the means supplied by 
the parent or earned by himself, at the sacrifice of his education. 
If he is at school, he becomes eager to quit it and earn the means 
of larger self-gratification, or plays truant and gets them, or 
simply participates in the dissipations of others at their expense. 
He sacrifices all his possible future and present opportunity to 
the acquisition of present means to indulge his instincts, or in 
their unbridled indulgence. He marries young and foolishly, 
when neither party is fit to assume the grave responsibility, or 
does far worse, squanders his substance, corrupts his blood, and 
saps his vitality with harlots. And women and wine go together. 


FIRMNESS, FORTITUDE OR PERSEVERANCE, ETC. 215 

And so beginning, he grows up brutalized and beastly, with 
little culture, steady and constant in no business, and fit for 
none but the lowest occupations, fickle in the pursuit of succes¬ 
sive sensuous gratifications, and constant only in the worship of 
the brutish elements of self. Whatever he acquires or can acquire, 
by whatsoever moral or immoral means, is forthwith squandered 
in vicious or inordinate self-indulgences, unless, perhaps the love 
of a virtuous wife and dependent children bring him at some 
period of life to his senses, and initiate a more sober, thought¬ 
ful and self-controlling career. But his disabilities cleave to him : 
and the habit of waywardness still remains, and he seeks no „ 
guidance, submits to no counsel, and continues to move obsti¬ 
nately on without chart or compass, other than his own inade¬ 
quate knowledge and overweening self-will, a hireling only and 
without a home, over a troubled sea, murmuring, dissatisfied, 
rejoicing in no self-sacrifice, happy neither at home nor abroad, 
disquieted himself and the source of disquietude to all who are in 
intimate relationship with him. 

Waywardness or egotism is but the resolute following up 
of those selfish instincts, desires and passions which are at any 
time in the ascendant in the child or adult; and it is consistent 
in nothing else, and is incompatible with obedience or sound 
judgment, and, in youth or adolescence, it is, in either sex, the 
foster-mother of all follies and vices and even crimes. It needs 
to be watched and repressed from earliest infancy. It is the 
vice that dethrones parental and divine authority, erects the 
altar of self-idolatry, and breeds a roving, incapable savage in the 
midst of all the science, arts and industries of the civilized life 
of ages of improvement. 

“ The slave of arrogance and pride— 

He has no learning on the prudent side. 

His still refuted quirks, he still repeats, 

Till sinking in the quicksands he defends, 

He dies disputing, and tbe contest ends.” 

Incapable of viewing things in any light or from any stand¬ 
point other than that of his own craving appetites, desires, and 
instincts, he is equally incapable of judging as to his own duty 
to others, or that of others to him: and, in thought and act, errs 
always in his own behalf. If he thinks of duty at all, he thinks 


216 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


of it only as something that others, the world or God, owe to 
him, and not as due from him to others or to God, and even 
arraigns divine justice because others, who used the opportuni¬ 
ties he cast away, are richer, more prosperous, higher, happier, 
or greater than himself. And there are multitudes of parents 
in the world, who, by mistaken indulgence, and often with much 
self-sacrifice, are training up just such children, to become just 
such men and women. And the world and they will wonder 
some day, how such self-denying and kind parents could give 
birth to and train and send into the world such evil and selfish 
children. But 

“ Had doting Priam checked his son’s desire, 

Troy had been bright with fame, and not with fire.” 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

INSTINCT OF ANGER OR DESTRUCTION. 

Man, as a carnivorous being, to whom is allotted the animal 
kingdom for food, requires an instinct which puts him in har¬ 
mony with that destiny; or, his benevolence and affection would 
incapacitate him from putting to death at least the domestic 
animals fit for food. Without such an instinct, his nature would 
revolt from the destruction of, or giving even temporary or 
momentary pain to any living thing capable of suffering ; and 
he could not obey the command to “kill and eat.” Without 
it, he would be out of harmony with a world in which decay, pen¬ 
alty and death exist, and there could be for him no melancholy 
pleasure in the contemplation of evanescence and death, or the rise 
and fall of states and kingdoms , 74 or the general decadence of sub¬ 
lunary things, but pain and agony only. And the same instinct 
that prompts him to the act of thus preparing his own food, and 
reconciles him to the evanescence of terrestrial things, prompts 
him also to the act of resentment', and to the disablement or 
destruction of noxious or injurious objects: and to this extent, 
this instinct has, in proper cases, a righteous and virtuous func¬ 
tion. Like all the other instincts and passions, it has been, is, 




INSTINCT OF ANGER OR DESTRUCTION. 217 

and will be co-eval with the human race and liable to error, per¬ 
version and mischief , 75 at least until the time shall come when 
there shall be none to hurt or destroy in all God’s kingdom. 
In a world, where things exist, which, however good they may 
be in their proper place, sphere and normal activities, are yet 
liable to become noxious, either by their misplacement, num¬ 
bers, voracity or other causes, the instinct that prompts to their 
destruction is essential to enable man to destroy that which 
needs to be annihilated. Soman builds, and when the building 
becomes inadequate to the requirements of the locality and its 
business, valuable as it may have been, destroys it and builds 
anew. So he destroys from among the crops which he cultivates, 
weeds, which elsewhere beneficent for their medicinal or other 
virtues, are here simply destructive of the crop which he seeks 
to make. So the command was given in the early years of 
man’s generations, and the instinct implanted in man’s nature 
ensuring its fulfillment, “ Whosever sheddeth man’s blood, by 
man shall his blood be shed : ” and, at the same time, cities of 
refuge were provided for the unintentional manslayer only. So, 
although it was unquestionably wrong to inflict the death penal¬ 
ty, as it was once inflicted, for every trivial offence or crime, it 
may well be doubted whether confirmed, habitual, irreclaimable 
criminals, who need only opportunity in order to wrong others, 
ought not to be put to death, or, at least, suffer the penalty of 
perpetual seclusion from society by imprisonment for life in 
some institution where they would be compelled to honestly 
support themselves. There are things in the world and human 
beings in it, that must be taken out of it by man’s agency, and 
not by miracle or the slow processes of nature ; and for the 
annihilation of them through the just anger, resentment, retri¬ 
bution or retaliation of the individual, in man’s natural condi¬ 
tion, and afterwards through the enactment and enforcement of 
rightful penal statutes in a society of law and civil order, this 
instinct must exist. Draconian codes are but inordinately 
bloody manifestations of this instinct, or perhaps may be neces¬ 
sary in an age when man is turbulently defiant of lesser penal¬ 
ties, and is irrepressible by them. In either state of man, this 
instinct has its proper and just sphere, and right or wrong modes, 
times and places of activity; and its essential function is not 


218 


VIA MOBALIS VINCENDI. 


solely the reformation of the offender, but the infliction of ade¬ 
quate penalty for the prevention and restraint of the crime and 
the criminal. And, teach as we may, the duty of obedience to 
law, where and when the law of civilized society fails to remedy, 
repress or punish injuries, men, not intrinsically vicious or law- 
defiers, will, under the just, excessive or mistaken impulse of 
this passion, retaliate, punish or destroy the offender. And, in 
its rightful sphere, and on just occasion, whether acting in one 
state of society, it acts through the individual, or in the other, 
through the civil magistrate, it can do no wrong, except through 
want of judging or want of judging rightly. And, in civilized 
communities, the civil magistrate is rightly and wisely made, 
through the law and through evidence of the facts, the repository 
of this power or right, because he is not under the influence of 
excited passion, prejudice and hatred, and so is less likely to err in 
his judgment, and may be as well the shield of the innocent, as the 
scourge of the guilty. And, although, as to human beings, the 
civil government has taken the law of retributive justice and its 
infliction into its own hands, and therefore forbidden its exercise 
by individuals, the instinct still has its sphere in repressing, by 
peaceful means if possible, instincts and injuries of which the 
law takes no cognizance, and those which by peaceable means 
and without law may be suppressed, and in the destruction of 
noxious or misplaced things other than mankind. 

“God,” it has been said, “is angry with the wicked every 
day.” And it is not, and cannot be a mere figure of speech. 
Every being that exists must have some constitution of its nature 
and being, some “ raison d’etre ,” some object and purpose of its 
existence, and whatever offends the harmony or constitution of 
that nature, or the laws which inhere in or flow from it, or which 
it imports, or thwarts the fulfillment of the objects of the Creative 
will, must tend to arouse the anger of that Being, who wisely 
constituted man, and who has declared, “ My spirit shall not 
always strive with man.” God’s very nature must be offended 
continually by the willful ignorance or violation of his known 
or knowable laws : and his just anger, moving when necessary, to 
the destruction of that which disturbs the harmony of His uni¬ 
verse, and of things capable of being intolerably hurtful in His 
kingdom, ordinarily brings upon them that destruction in con- 


INSTINCT OF ANGER OR DESTRUCTION. 219 

formity to his permanent laws ; and through the agencies of 
nature or of man. The stories of the rise and fall of empires, 
the grandeur and annihilation of peoples, and the terrific 
desolations of the barbarian, the pestilence and the flood, are 
difficult in their philosophy, and are nowhere philosophically 
recorded except in the general principle brought to light in the 
sacred volume of God’s inspired scriptures—that they “ forgat 
God and disobeyed His laws! ” 

From the beginning of the world, and through the eras 
whose story is told only in the buried remains of cities and of 
primeval art, and more certainly in its eras of recorded history, 
the work of destruction of all living things and lifeless, and of 
entities, concrete or abstract, has been going on. Nations have 
warred upon nations, in the alleged cause of justice, or on the 
pretence of or real resistance to wrong. Man, like the animal 
or vegetable kingdom, when he so enervates or corrupts himself 
that he has ceased to obey or have the ability to obey the will of 
God, or subserve the purposes of an all-wise Creator, perishes 
individually or nationally from the places that have known him, 
and is known there no more forever. The feeble, the enervated, 
the dissipated and brutal, the self-indulgent, the defiers of 
parental authority and instruction, and the criminal classes, sel¬ 
dom live out half their days ; and their decay and extinction is 
wrought out in general by their own ignorance, carelessness or 
unruly appetites, and through the operation of the physical, 
moral and religious laws which conserve the wise and good. 

The proper sphere, man-ward, of anger, which is one of the 
manifestations of this instinct, is when milder means fail to 
repress insult, injury, wrong and crime, injurious to the indi¬ 
vidual or the community: and it is very generally, when it 
arouses conscience or caution, potential so to do, even without 
any other actual punishment. The person who. schools him¬ 
self never to exhibit just or rational anger, invites aggression, 
injustice and injury only, from the brutal and unconscientious. 
On proper occasions he must do at least this : although he may 
fail to retaliate, and may forgive ^ipon proper apology and peni¬ 
tence, or restitution for the wrong. A wise deterring anger and 
its due self-controlling exhibition would seem to need no apology 
or justification ; but mere malice or secret revenge can have only 


220 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


a debasing effect on him who indulges it, and can bring him no 
healing, restitution or other good. Yet 

“ Some perverted beings hope to find 
In scorn or hate, a medicine for the mind, 

"Which scorn or hate hath wounded. Oh, how vain! 

The dagger heals not, but may rend again! ” 

Whenever the common government asserts this right of 
retribution or punishment, it ceases to be exercised of right by 
the individual who puts himself under its protection, and 
assumes the obligation of obedience to its laws. The spirit is 
that of a barbarian that seizes into its own hands retaliation for 
injuries for which the public law furnishes an adequate remedy 
or penalty. But, if the government demands obedience to its 
laws of peace and good order, it assumes also the duty of re¬ 
pressing every wrong: and to the extent that it fails to afford 
peaceful remedies for wrong, it absolves the subject from the 
duty of leaving the infliction of penalty to the civil magistrate 
only. And hence, in eras when seduction went unpunished by 
law, and the rights of the affections were practically undefended 
by the community, juries, prompted by their rude sense of 
justice, failed to convict the slayer of the seducer. 

But, in the multitude of minor offences and offenders, it is 
impracticable to frame laws for all possible offences, without 
making them so voluminous that even professional lawyers can¬ 
not know them. And even now the very knowledge of the 
existence of this spirit of wrath and of its certain manifestation, 
deters many an otherwise willing offender from the commission 
of the offence. The extent of the duty of forgiveness is to for¬ 
give unintentional, ignorant or even willful wrong, upon repent¬ 
ance ; which implies also restitution as the fruit of a real repent¬ 
ance. It is thus only that Go'd himself sets to man any example 
of forgiveness. Do what the community may, it, cannot right¬ 
fully take into its hands preventive or remedial justice in cases 
where it furnishes no remedy : and it can never so completely 
take it in hand as to remove all occasion for every rightful retri¬ 
bution from the individual in cases where retribution is the only 
possible restitution. Anger or^resentment is, therefore, on fit, 
rightful and necessary occasions, still a virtue, and in other cases, 
its every manifestation is a wrong and sin. Its excessive and 
unregulated retributions are terrible and attended by 


INSTINCT OF ANGER OR DESTRUCTION. 


221 


“ Abhorred bloodshed and tumultuous strife, 

Unseemly murder and unthrifty scathe, 

Bitter despite and rancor’s rusty knife, 

And fretting grief, the enemy of life.” 

In passionate people, when unrestrained by the sentiment 
of benevolence and justice, tlfe slightest causes of offence or sus¬ 
picion give rise to its most terrible manifestations. It is the most 
dangerous of all the instincts, except, perhaps, that of sexual 
love, and it requires the utmost judgment, vigilance and sense 
to control it within just bounds. Too many, untaught or un¬ 
trained in the school of Christianity, grow up to consider its 
exhibition as the mark of a high spirit, and indulge it in extrav¬ 
agant resentment of any little pecadillo or act of ill-breeding. 
It is the most prolific source of alienation in societies and house¬ 
holds, ending in fixed enmities and continuous feuds, strife, or 
utter hatred and final separation. Good manners are very 
agreeable, and rude or bad are equally disagreeable: but the in¬ 
stinct has no right function in the mere correction of these 
minor morals or errors of ignorance, absent-mindedness or acci¬ 
dent. All are not, or may not be expected to be polite, or to 
practice the rules of a courtly, fashionable or Christian etiquette : 
and many are impolite through ignorance of good manners, 
rude breeding or lack of any, absence of mind caused by trouble 
or engrossment in study, or lack of observation or tact. Nor 
are honest differences of creeds, plans or modes of action any 
right ground for the excitement of this passion. Every free 
citizen of a country or state, or every member of any society, 
and every adult of equal experience and knowledge in a family, 
has as good a right to form and hold his or her opinion, taste, 
creed, plan or mode or kind of action as any other member, ex¬ 
cept that all must submit their action to rules properly imposed, 
or to some one chief, for order’s sake, in the home or in the 
business. Persecutions or prosecutions, except by way of just 
penalty for real offences and substantial injuries, find in this 
instinct a cause, but no real vindication : but find their origin in 
the perversions and abuses of this instinct, known as contempt, 
malice, hatred, jealousy , 76 or revenge, all of which are wrong or 
sin. And all such inordinate resentments are vices in morals, 
and sins in their religious aspect, wherever or by whomsoever, 


222 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


and toward whomsoever indulged. And every resort of mag¬ 
nanimity, justice and generosity should be tried and exhausted 
in order to arouse the better nature of the wrong-doer, and to 
shame or attract the offender to a better and higher life, before 
the instinct is allowed to influence conduct even in its normal 
sphere and for its rightful ends. It is not implanted to destroy 
what can be governed, restored, amended, or made useful and 
beneficent; but to lop away that which is injurious, or to destroy 
that which must be destroyed. A criminal prosecution and 
conviction of a first or second offence of the very young or un¬ 
taught, without any previous reformatory efforts or moral in¬ 
fluences, may be, and often is, the worst of remedies ; and may 
inflict upon society a confirmed, hardened, shameless and re¬ 
vengeful criminal, that milder reformatory efforts and proper 
tuition might have redeemed. 


CHAPTEK XXXIV. 

OF SECRETIVENESS, OR THE INSTINCT TO CONCEAL OR HIDE. 

Man is endowed with an instinct which prompts him to 
secrete and hide ; and it may have a foolish or a wise, a moral 
or an immoral or criminal manifestation, as it is guided or gov¬ 
erned by the intelligence and moral faculties of man, or not so 
guided and governed . 77 It has, as its existence imports, its 
rightful and just sphere of activity or its wrongful one of folly, 
immorality or crime. Even things and offices and acts, which 
are intrinsically right and proper, may rightfully, for a time or 
forever, for decency’s or safety’s sake, be hidden from every eye 
or ear, and locked forever in one’s own breast. Woman, if she 
love, prudently conceals it until she knows she is beloved with 
a holy love and is asked to reveal it— 

“ She never told her love, 

But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud, 

Feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought, 

And sat like Patience on a monument, 

Smiling at grief.” 



OF SECRETIVENESS, ETC. 


223 


Decency and safety alike require that many things and acts, 
not essentially wrong, be concealed, or transacted in the entire 
privacy of a viewless secrecy, and never told or talked about. 
He is a fool who “ wears his heart upon his sleeve for daws to 
peck at.” They are little less foolish, who must have some con¬ 
fidants to entrust with the secrets that ought to be known only 
to one’s self. The proper office of this propensity is to main¬ 
tain this just privacy. Prudence may indicate the need of con¬ 
cealment, and require that certain infirmities, temptations, cir¬ 
cumstances and conditions, of which the designing might take 
undue advantage, he not revealed, or be the subject of positive 
concealment, and this instinct gives the impulse and the power 
to conceal them. They, who do not so conceal, are exposed to 
being made either the reluctant tools of the dangerous and the 
bad in their unhallowed designs upon others, or their victims 
through their own known infirmities. Such secrecy, without 
falsehood or fraud, is commendable and virtuous and the hand¬ 
maid of virtue. And the existence of the instinct in all man¬ 
kind ought to warn all, that it is impertinent, rude and wrong 
to pry into that which our associates may, for reasons satisfactory 
to themselves, desire to conceal or do not spontaneously reveal ; 
and also to guard all against the whole class of prying individuals: 
and if any do inquire into such matters, there is yet no need of 
falsehood. Vulgar or self-seeking curiosity may be evaded or 
repelled without it. But the common conversation of the un¬ 
educated or uninformed classes, or of the vulgar, is too apt to run 
only or chiefly to revelations of their own affairs better kept to 
themselves, or inquiries into those of others which do not affect 
them and are none of their business ; and hence, when victims 
are to be found to cupidity or lust, they are apt to be more plen¬ 
tifully and easily found in that class. 

On the other hand, in its excessive or misguided action, it 
may be a folly, a vice or a crime. It is a folly, when it prompts 
to needless and idle stratagems for the love of secrecy. It was 
said of the great English poet Pope, the author of a very phil¬ 
osophical essay on Man, that he could not do the simplest 
thing without a stratagem. Heedless strategy, for innocent 
purposes, is at worst but a folly : but such strategists will bear 
watching, for none can know or assume that the purpose is in- 


224 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


nocent or foolish only. But he, whom this instinct perverts to 
utter falsehoods or to enact them, or to deal in false pretences 
where others have a right to expect and do expect the truth, 
and he, who deals in any kind of sham, charlatanism or false 
assumption in business, society, church, morals, style of living, 
or dress, and pretends to be what he is not, or to have what he 
has not, abuses this instinct, and is a wrong-doer or a hypocrite. 
Even though he injure no one, nor get any undue advantage of 
any one by so doing, he abuses his own moral nature and debases 
himself by the fraud to a greater degree than he can possibly 
lift himself in the estimation of others, and becomes an incarnate 
fraud or lie : and yet this is the common smartness of low intel¬ 
ligences and of the little great men and women, which by the 
vulgar and the pre-occupied or the sympathetic is mistaken for 
ability, wisdom, smartness or acuteness, all which when genuine, 
are attributes of the quick and large understanding only— 

“A man of sense can artifice disdain, 

As men of wealth can venture to go plain ; 

I find the fool, when I behold the screen, 

For ’tis a wise man’s interest to be seen.” 

Hypocrites, habitual flatterers who give exaggerated or un¬ 
deserved commendation, and in the domestic, social or business 
circles, too secretive people, are always to be suspected of sinister 
designs, although the suspicion may not be well founded : for 
no one acts unworthily in general, except from a sinister char¬ 
acter, purpose or motive: and although commendatory speeches, 
when just, are rightly a current coin of polite society, and else¬ 
where may often spring spontaneously and naturally from the 
heart and be worthy only of a generous reception, yet too often 

“ Fine speeches are the instruments of knaves, 

Or fools, that use them when they want good sense; ” 

or when they are spreading some net to entangle a victim: and, 
when prompted by secretiveness, are veils to hidden snares. 
There are no people so ignorant or low, or so high and self- 
contained, as to be insensible to the voice of praise. Men and 
women differ more in the kind and quality of the praise which 
is grateful to them, and in their discrimination of its source and 
value, than in their sensibility or insensibility, to its incense. 
The flatterer attacks human nature on its weakest side, except, 


OF SECRETIVENESS, ETC. 


225 


perhaps, him who attacks it through the temptations of easy and 
magnificent gains, or vows of imperishable affection. Just com¬ 
mendation for high characteristics and well doing is always 
commendable, stimulating and encouraging to good deeds. It 
may be too much neglected in the education of children. The 
words of encouragement and praise for well doing are as neces¬ 
sary as are timely words of correction or reproof; and really, 
where they will answer as good a purpose, are to be preferred. 
It is a sign of good breeding ; but it it ought never, in the child 
or adult or to him, to degenerate into hollow and insincere flat¬ 
tery. Nor should jealousy, malevolence and rudeness, however 
natural to the character, be allowed to assume the guise of can¬ 
dor and be excused as plain speaking. Such speeches are 
equally as vicious as flattery, when volunteered and no fit occa¬ 
sion demands their utterance. Scandal and satire are the off¬ 
spring of vices, the direct opposites of flattery, are born of 
malevolence, have no rightful place in the most sincere societies : 
and need to be frowned down in every truly polite, moral or 
Christian circle. And, although honesty needs no disguise, the 
pretence of honesty never excuses the utterance of indecent 
language or ideas, the doing of malicious or noxious deeds, 
or the unveiling of that which should be secret, or the pub¬ 
lic or private exhibition of that which should be hidden, or 
offence to the modesty or better feelings of even the low or the 
guilty. 

In its worst action, it is the mother of treachery, like that of 
Judas, or like that of the panther which springs from its covert, 
or the assassin that slays unseen : and thefts, embezzlements 
and kleptomanias never exist, except through its ungoverned 
supremacy . 78 

Like every other instinct, this one can be guided and con¬ 
trolled in its just sphere and operation only by well-balanced, 
well-informed and sensible minds, supremely studious of right 
and duty: and it is not a matter of just surprise that, in and by 
the multitude of unthinking, ever-aspiring people of low capac¬ 
ities and lower ambitions, its knaveries or treacheries should be 
mistaken for real shrewdness, and be made the bond-slave of 
their master passions, and be employed chiefly to subserve their 
dubious or iniquitous ends: and that they should practice any 

O 


226 


VIA MORALIS VINOENDI. 


and every base artifice that promotes them, and regard such 
artifices in themselves or others as the highest evidence of 
capacity or talent. Yet none who are not superhuman in power 
as well as excellence, can, like the noble Roman, wish that they 
had a window in their breast, so that their every thought could 
be seen or known of all men: and, perhaps, in his case, there 
was more affectation of candor than its reality, and the speech 
itself was really prompted by this very instinct. All affectations 
are born of it, and are follies when they are not vices. 


CHAPTER XXXY. 

OF ATTACHMENT OR FRIENDSHIP. 

This instinct is like that of the ivy—and, unless a trained* 
reason and cultivated tastes and morals modify it, it clings to 
whatever is nearest and most familiar. Its essential office was 
never, perhaps, more beautifully expressed than in the trite and 
oft quoted, but tender and true words of Erin’s bard of the 
human affections— 

“ The heart, like a tendril, accustomed to cling, 

Let it grow where it will, cannot flourish alone, 

But will cling to the nearest and loveliest thing 
It can twine with itself and make closely its own.” 

And hence, the duty of a proper and careful selection alike 
of our own associates, and especially of those of the young com¬ 
mitted to our care, becomes at once apparent and imperative. And 
one of the chief evils of our common schools is, that they render 
this selection nearly impossible, and tend to put on the same 
level or reduce to it, those who have careful training at home, 
and those children who have none or a vicious one, who bring to 
the school contaminations of idleness and contagions of vice, that, 
like those of disease, tend to propagate themselves. ■ For people, 
by association, not only grow into a union of attachment, but 
through this attachment approximate to unity and homogeneity 
of character; and they who are of a more or less negative char¬ 
acter, falling into mixed or unselected associations, are apt to 



OF ATTACHMENT OR FRIENDSHIP. 


227 


form friendships without discrimination as to character, and to 
become lifted or depressed to the level of their constant associ¬ 
ates. Such ill-assorted, accidental associations and friendships 
rarely become the parent of virtue or excellence in the adult: 
for folly is more common and easy than wisdom ; and vices dif¬ 
fering only in their degrees, kinds and names, afflict more or less 
the best of common characters in youth and maturity. But, in 
a person of more positive character, the association is generally 
with persons of congenial character: and then they become 
means of fixing that character and making it more positive or 
more stable in good or ill: and only when the daily familiar 
association is of the best, can the best development of character 
be hoped for. Such select associations with those who are most 
eminent for the virtues we need or desire to cultivate, are a 
most important and effective aid to the reformation of a defec¬ 
tive character, as well as to the establishment and stability of 
the higher and better one. Mankind 

“ Like the stained web that whitens in the sun, 

Grows pure by being purely shone upon.” 

“ Birds of a feather flock together,” has become a trite proverb : 
and men, women and children are rightly judged by the known 
character of their intimate, and not mere casual or business 
associates. Hence, too, people of an immature or unsettled char¬ 
acter, if allowed in early life to form unworthy intimacies, may 
perpetuate the worst and most degrading alliances and the vices 
of their low associates, to their lasting injury ; and are in special 
danger of so doing. And hence it becomes at once evident that 
this instinct or affection, although it is one of the most pure, 
tender, disinterested, constant and universal of the human affec¬ 
tions, must be controlled and directed wisely and conscientiously, 
or, it may lead to vice as well as to virtue; or in other words, 
have a vicious as well as a virtuous sympathy, activity and at¬ 
tachment : and when it is seen, that any one is at all disposed 
to vicious or unfit associations, it is an indication and warning 
of danger: and they should, at the very beginning, be broken up 
at any cost. In its depraved, though perhaps still amiable ac¬ 
tion, this affection breathes forth the sentiment of one of Moore’s 
songs— 


228 


VIA VINCENDI MORALIS. 


“ Oh, what was love made for, if’tis not the same, 

Through joy or through sorrow, in honor or shame ! 

I know not—I ask not—if guilt’s in thy heart— 

I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art! ” 

And such an attachment, once formed and matured, is never 
severed or severable except by some change of extraneous cir¬ 
cumstances or in the action, affection or character and contact 
of those to whom the attachment clings. It is easier in the 
beginning to arrest and prevent it, than it is to afterward break 
or unwind its twining tendrils. And this attachment is blind ; 
and, in and of itself has no regard to sex, character or aught else 
but something lovable, contiguity and association ; but unites 
man to man, and woman to woman, or each to the other, or even 
to meaner pets or companions, by chords the most tender, holy, 
disinterested and enduring. And, although it may not be born 
of nearness or association merely, it may be called into activity 
and fixed by them ; for none are so desperately worthless or bad 
that they have not some amiable traits, or at least can assume 
them, or some attractive and pleasant moods and times, which 
may add force to this attachment even to the unworthy, 
especially when sexual love becomes its accessory. 

And hence, when parents and children, brothers and sisters, 
the constant inmates of one happy home, conduct themselves 
with any consideration for each other, this affection grows in 
strength with the increase of years, and becomes not only the 
tenderest bond of the one household, but of the lives of those 
who once were its inmates, after they have scattered far and 
wdde into the world; although, in homes where constant selfish¬ 
ness, aggressions, disputes, contentions and mutual annoyances 
and injustice are allowed daily to prevail and grow habitual, the 
spirit of a growing alienation, mutual dislike, or hatred and con¬ 
tention, may become chronic, and may substitute their separat¬ 
ing power, or may breed Cains within the sacred precincts of 
the home. And hence, if there be any place in the wide world, 
where the virtues which breed good manners are to be practiced, 
it is in the home, the family and by and among its inmates. 
And here especially the poetic injunction must be heeded— 

“ Oh ye who have the charge of love, 

Keep him in rosy fetters bound— 

As in the fields of bliss above, 


OF ATTACHMENT OR FRIENDSHIP. 229 

He sits with flowrets fettered round ; 

Loose not a tie that round him clings, 

Nor ever let him use his wings ; 

For even an hour's, a moment’s flight, 

May rob their plumes of half their light." 

But in every place, where and when people try to live in a 
manner not positively disagreeable to each other, this sentiment 
is called into silent and scarcely noticeable activity by the mutual 
associations of every year, month, day, or even minutes. Famil¬ 
iarity, in the haughty only and toward the ignorant, low or vile, 
may breed contempt: but, in general, it breeds this clinging at¬ 
tachment. It is repelled only by misconduct, not, perhaps, 
towards others, but towards one’s self : and, in the higher and 
more cultured natures, by misconduct toward any person. 
Hence the exercise of justice and politeness is the rule not only 
of the law ’of good manners and polite society, but also of the 
law prescribed by the right sense of self-interest and by sound 
wisdom, if it is desired to attain and hold the attachments of 
our best associates in the world. Hence, too, the recluse, the 
student, the philosopher of the study or the laboratory, may, 
with all his deep thought, wisdom and vast acquirement or 
erudition, have the regard or reverence of his fellow men, yet 
seldom or never know that clinging attachment and sympathy 
of the many to him, for which the soul hungers, and which is 
born of this sentiment and visibly accorded to his inferiors, ex¬ 
cept, perhaps, he realizes a degree of it from and to the few who 
have been brought into near intercourse with him, or from some 
of the intelligent classes who have been brought near to him 
spiritually by a spiritual communion with his works. The great 
teacher, Christ, lived daily amid his disciples, and the multitudes 
whom he taught; and his disciples adhered to him and to his 
doctrines after his own passion and crucifixion, even unto death. 
Except authors and other great teachers, through spiritual near¬ 
ness and communion, none achieve this attachment, except 
through the time devoted to near intercourse with each other, 
more or less constant, intimate and cordial: and the strength of 
the attachment, other things being equal, is in proportion to the 
frequency and extent generally of this agreeable intercourse in 
business or society. And the knowledge of the existence of this 
instinct, instructs the wise that they are not placed in the world 


230 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


to live alone or work alone, nor only for deeds of justice and 
charity, but also for society—and, if possible, for such society as 
shall react upon its every member in his or her elevation to a 
higher standard of manners, morals, intelligence—or in other 
words, of manhood or womanhood. And hence springs another 
duty of economizing time; for he or she, who, for any cause, 
neglects this social duty or the co-ordinate duty of mutual po¬ 
liteness and affection in his social or business circles, has no 
right to complain that he or she stands really friendless and 
alone in the world. There is no good attainable in this world 
without some cost: and, in order to have or acquire this attach¬ 
ment, a reasonable portion, at least, of our time, must be devoted 
to it. And they, who permit themselves to become so utterly 
engrossed with the noblest ambitions or pursuits, that they give 
no time, or little, to social intercourse, have generally been made 
most unhappy by a sense of loneliness, isolation and friendless¬ 
ness ; and they can not be otherwise, unless they are capable of 
the stoic philosophy of the poet— 

“ Here’s a sigh to those who love me, 

And a smile to those who hate; 

And whatever sky’s above me, 

Here’s a heart for any fate ”— 

a philosophy easy for the prosperous, surrounded by friends, to 
teach; but which, alas ! can shed no light of love into the gloom 
of isolation, or into the soul that vainly hungers for friendship 
and love. 

Yet the just and benevolent, in their association with others, 
with the mere intent of doing good to them, must and do form 
some attachment to the objects of their beneficence; and, in 
general, acquire from some of them a degree of like attachment. 
And this attachment is and becomes a bond of brotherhood be¬ 
tween all ranks and conditions of men and women. 

But this instinct too is liable to abuse. And it is so abused, 
when it prompts to vain longings, inordinate visits and their 
unregulated frequency and duration, to the sacrifice of duties 
due to self, family and their education and support, or other 
high and urgent offices and tasks assumed by the man or woman, 
or which they are in duty bound to assume: and this abuse is a 
prevailing vice of the unlettered, yet otherwise industrious poor, 


OF THE LOVE OF OFFSPRING. ' 231 

who waste, night after night, their precious hours—the men in 
ale houses and other like or worse places, and the women in the 
idlest gossip at home or abroad, and the unlettered young in 
dances and idle amusement, without devoting one hour to their 
own, or their children’s improvement or higher education. 


CHAPTER XXXYI. 

OF THE LOVE OF OFFSPRING. 

X ature and her all-wise Creator has not left the care and 
nurture of helpless infancy dependent solely upon a slow sense 
of duty. The most grave and far-reaching of all the earthly 
duties of man, in its influence upon the world through all its 
generations, requires not only in man but in the brute creation, 
a special instinct inciting to its discharge : and, accordingly, that 
indispensible instinctive affection of love for our own offspring 
is implanted in every human heart, without which there could 
be no assurance of the continued existence and perpetuation of 
man’s race upon the earth, and still less hope of its progress and 
exaltation. And 

“ ’Tis a sight that angel ones above 
May stoop to gaze on from their bowers of bliss, 

When Innocence upon the breast of Love, 

Is cradled in a sinful world like this.” 

And this affection too may have, and has ever, its orderly, 
just and virtuous action, or an inordinate erring or vicious man- 
ifestation. In its right and just action it prompts, in intelligent 
beings, to every thoughtful provision for the helpless ones com¬ 
mitted to its charge; to their vigilant protection from every 
peril, accident and harm, to their proper nurture and care in 
health and sickness; and to find a genuine pleasure in the task, 
often one of great difficulty and requiring much sacrifice, of 
educating their higher powers and faculties; and it prompts the 
sentiment, amid every sacrifice— 

“ Delightful task ! to rear the tender thought, 

To teach the young idea how to shoot, 

To pour the fresh instruction o’er the mind, 

To breathe the enlivening spirit, or to prompt 
The generous purpose in the glowing breast.” 



232 


VIA MOKALIS VINCENDI. 


And all these offices are imperative duties, indicated not 
only by reason, but by the very existence of this instinct in a 
rational being, having for its object another rational, moral and 
religious being, yet to be trained and informed. 

On the other hand, this instinct, if undirected by intelli¬ 
gence, reason and sound morals, leads doting parents to inane and 
vain fondlings, like the monkey’s, and to pampering and exacer¬ 
bating every craving instinct, passion and vain ambition of the 
infant, to mistake in their own children every vice for its kin¬ 
dred virtue, to indulge in their own and their children’s thoughts, 
vain and vague aspirations and dreams of future wealth, power, 
greatness or success in some great sphere, even while neither 
parent or child is laboring to so instruct or discipline the infant 
as to fit it for the commonest offices of life, or to encounter and 
overcome its most conquerable difficulties, and the school’s easiest 
lessons, for none of which things the child yet exhibits either 
taste or capacity; to indulge the child in shrinking from every 
thing difficult, and to permit it to seek exclusively all that to it is 
easy, self-gratifying and pleasant; when, in fact, to the undisci¬ 
plined and unworked intellect nothing is easy, but its indolence 
and the indulgence of sensuous pleasures. Such parents 

il Consult not parts nor turn of mind, 

But, even in infancy decree 

What this, what the other son shall be ”— 

and always decree it to their own and their children’s life-long 
disappointment and grief. They have already ruined the man 
or the woman by the indolent habits and love of ease of their 
infancy, unless those early habits are, with great effort and diffi¬ 
culty, or by the perception of an over-ruling dire necessity, 
corrected in their maturer years. And it is not for this, that 
God always sends helpless and feeble but rational beings into 
the care of the mature and the experienced: and, however kind 
their intent, they, who so waste time and opportunity of child¬ 
hood, and indulge children, greatly violate the gravest of 
earthly duties. Right discipline and toil of faculties and powers, 
and just lessons of self-denial and self control—the Spartan dis¬ 
cipline of Lycurgus applied to the mind as well as the body, con¬ 
stitute, in truth, a far more just and beneficent discharge of . 


OF THE LOVE OF OFFSPRING. 


233 


parental duty than the most pleasing indulgences that the great¬ 
est and most wealthy parents can bestow upon them. 

Parents having this instinctive affection for their own chil¬ 
dren first and also for children generally, as such, it in them as 
rational beings, implies a higher grade of office than it does in 
a mere animal gifted with little or no intelligence and endowed 
with no moral or religious instincts or faculties. Yet even the 
least intelligent animals feed, defend, cherish and hover their 
young. It implies in the man or woman, who voluntarily assumes 
the parental relation, more than the duty of caressing, feeding, 
caring for and protecting the young, as it is discharged even by 
the lower animals. It is not implanted in intelligent beings 
simply to waste itself in tender caresses, nor in the mere physical 
nurture or defence of the young, and to perform no higher office 
than it performs in brutes ; but chiefly, to ensure their develop¬ 
ment and culture as intelligent beings, their fitness for all the 
active works of their possible intelligent, moral and religious 
sphere or mission in life ; and their safety as moral and religious 
entities from error, wrong and crime. And that God has de¬ 
signed every human being to assume and discharge parental 
duties, is evident from the fact that he endows all with this in¬ 
stinct. And that parent is guilty of an impious wrong and sin, 
who allows one child to grow up utterly unfit to assume this 
relation; and who, assuming it, fails at least to oversee, superin¬ 
tend or co-operate in the due discharge of his or her educational, 
moral and religious duty as a parent. 

And one of the perverted modes of action of this instinct, 
most to be avoided, is that implicit and partial faith in one’s own 
children, which assumes that they are always in the right, and 
other children or teachers always, generally or ever doing 
them wrong. Every question of that kind requires unbiased 
investigation and judgment; or, it may encourage falsehood, 
indolence, insubordination and vice in one’s own children, or 
work great injustice to others. Such a course cannot fail, by a 
want of due and timely correction, to deteriorate, if not ruin 
one’s own children, and fortify in them habits of falsehood, and 
to originate and embitter enmities, not only between children 
themselves, but between parents, and teachers or other parents. 
There is no easy or royal road to the discharge of parental duty. 


234 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


Parents dream in vain of such perfection in their own chil¬ 
dren as not to require vigilance, correction and punishment at 
their hands. And such parents require of the teacher that which 
God himself wisely does not attempt in the world—government 
without punishment or penalty for insubordination to law and 
for indolence or other misbehavior. Every law has and must 
have its penalty and mode of enforcement; and the necessary 
laws of the school are no exceptions. The progress of the 
scholars of the whole school is already everywhere impaired by 
a failure to punish that indolence which is sometimes the sign, 
but always the parent of stupidity. The intellect early disci 
plined to real intellectual effort, seldom gives way in after life to 
the necessary strains put upon it in maturity : but the feeble and 
the weak, through lack of early discipline, every reverse, diffi¬ 
culty, loss or minor effort to bear or overcome, may drive to in¬ 
sanity or despair. Healthy activities alone mature and fortify 
body and mind. And the man, woman or youth, who has an 
intellect trained and disciplined to endurance and power, is alone 
ever capable of feeling and thought such as Channing attributes 
to himself—“ I feel a noble enthusiasm spreading through my 
frame. Every nerve is strung, every muscle is laboring. Mv 
bosom pants with a great half-conceived and indescribable senti¬ 
ment. I seem inspired with a surrounding Deity.” And it is 
thus that genius toils up to the unknown and masters all knowl¬ 
edge of it. With all the tenderness of a parent, there must be 
a judicial impartiality, an inexorable systematic discipline of 
the intellect, and a constant and habitual right practice of morals 
and manners. 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

THE SENSE OF THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL. 

These twin sentiments or affections of the human mind, 
wisely implanted by the Creator, may be considered as moral 
instincts or emotions, for they not only open up a sphere of 
innocent and elevating pleasure, and lend a fascination to every 
scene of beauty and grandeur in the external world and to every 



THE SENSE OF THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL. 235 

external object or sound that has any attributes of beauty or 
grandeur ; but they discern the beauty of gentle, loving deeds 
and expressions and traits of character, or grandeur in life’s 
grander emotions, passions, or more sublime exhibitions and 
heroic achievement and duties. And cultivated, they shine 
upon and irradiate, with a glory invisible to colder or unimag¬ 
inative natures, all the arduous and difficult paths of duty and 
gentle offices of love, and are important aids and attractions to 
the discharge of duty even in the midst of self-denials and suf¬ 
ferings ; and, in their light, even self-denials have a beauty, and 
sufferings and sacrifice a grandeur, invisible to the groveling 
and the low. 

God has made nothing, useful only. Every leaf of the 
most common plant, every stem and capsule of the tiniest moss 
is beautiful in form and hue. In all God’s creation, from the 
simplest lichen to the towering and majestic mountain and vast 
and billowy ocean, there is an element of beauty or grandeur, 
which appeals to, elevates and delights a correlative sentiment 
in man, and lifts his entranced emotions and thoughts above 
the mere material or essential properties of things. These sen¬ 
timents discern and appreciate, not only beauty and grandeur 
in external nature, but they discern a daily beauty in the gentler 
instincts and hourly recurring duties of life, and sublimity in 
the grander aspirations and sacrificial deeds of self-denial, self- 
control and heroism inspired by them, and in the God who is 
the author of all. Every pure thought, affection and tender 
expression appeals to and is fostered and aided by this sense of 
beauty, as every grand aspiration and heroic deed is aided and 
encouraged by the sense of the sublime ; and both naturally lift 
the religious instinct to the soul-aspiring worship of the divine 
by exciting its sympathetic action. Under their subliming in¬ 
fluence, love is no longer brutal lust, but a hallowed and hal¬ 
lowing sacrificial offering. Self-sacrifice and self-devotion to 
pure and holy affections, and high and holy duties are no longer 
romantic follies, and stand out under their illumination, arrayed 
in glories not of earth, but of God and Heaven. They hallow 
and irradiate, with beams of celestial glory, things and acts that 
are but a weariness or a routine to all who quench these in¬ 
stincts. 


236 


VIA MOKALIS VINCENDI. 


For every man or woman, whatever their feature or con¬ 
dition, all their gentle and right affections, when exalted and 
refined above mere brute instincts, and every ray of bright and 
pure intelligence that shines within them, take an outward ex¬ 
pression in eye, form or feature, and lend to them a charm of 
expression, a beauty or a grandeur, born only of them. Of such 
it is early said, and of them only— 

“And heaven, which gives to thee each mental grace, 

Has stamped the angel in thy sweet young face.” 

But only on those who vigilantly endeavor to cultivate the 
knowledge and practice of every gentle or noble duty, and strive 
to exalt, refine and purify every instinct and affection, do these 
sweet and attractive expressions stamp themselves or outshine 
constantly or spontaneously from the speaking eye or the linea¬ 
ments of the dimpled face. It takes time to mark “the lines 
where beauty lingers.” And, whatever be the material form or 
metaphysical perfection of man or woman, if the brutish and 
selfish instincts are habitually indulged, that form may be 
graceful and voluptuous and the natural outlines of feature 
perfect; but the higher and nobler beauty that breathes in the 
“spiritual face,” and from every fixed or changing lineament, 
will be utterly lost or wanting. An inexpressive countenance, 
or one expressing only evil passions, however perfect in form 
or color, is cold and unattractive, and may be even repulsive. 
It may have beauty; but it is the beauty of the dead or of the 
deadly asp. And if the countenance be lined with the impres¬ 
sions of gross sensual or evil passions, this beauty of the asp or 
the tiger may be hateful only to the intelligent gazer. Love is 
not of the body or the seen only, but of soul to the soul of an¬ 
other, as it is seen or imagined to be seen in feature and action. 

We owe it to ourselves, to our fellow-man and to God, to 
strive not thus to mar the last, highest and most perfect of His 
works, the human soul or its outward expression in the human 
face divine, but to make all right efforts to improve its grace, 
beauty and perfection of expression, to have shining in and 
from it the light of a pure soul created in the divine image, and 
therein beautiful beyond all other of the most beautiful things 
of earth. Possessing this spiritual beauty, every form and variety 
of feature and complexion can be but matter of indifference; 


THE SENSE OF THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL. 237 

for this nobler and purer loveliness will adorn and beautify them 
all. And true reverence for and habitual practice of duty, and 
a genuine and sincere worship of the Supreme, give to the face 
a saintly loveliness like that of the Madonna; far surpassing 
that of even the gentler emotions of earth. It adds to the latter 
an expression of high resignation, devout aspiration, holiness 
and peace, which lends it a grandeur, dignity and sublimity 
such as none can have save those who sincerely and constantly 
worship; and who, under God’s good providence, are fitted for 
deeds of heroic self-sacrifice and self-devotion. He, who really 
conforms his soul to duty and to God, retains or acquires also, 
in a greater or less degree, the outward and visible image of the 
spiritual and eternal, and becomes God like in a more than 
earthly beauty and grandeur. The soul on earth is not separate 
from the body, but abides in it, moulds it and gives it its form 
and real glory. All faces, except the utterly idiotic or inane, 
beam with soul; and it may be one that is depraved, animal- 
ized, earthly, sensuous or devilish ; or intelligent, serene, calm 
and holy, with the sanctified radiance of Heaven. And the 
gross or sensual ordinarily attract only their likes and must wed 
low. And there is a neutral beauty of mere feature, form and 
complexion, which is 

“A doubtful good, a gloss, a flower, 

Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour.” 

But the more perennial and unfading type of beauty in 
.man or woman may brighten more and more unto the perfect 
day, and requires the best art of poet or painter to but feebly 
delineate, when from every changing feature speak 

‘‘The light of Love, the purity of Grace, 

The mind, the music breathing from the face, 

The heart whose softness harmonized the whole.” 

And they who really conform their souls to the harmonies 
of duty, and retain therein the image of the eternal and spirit¬ 
ual, cannot but have and show a corresponding harmony of 
expression almost divine. And, if we fulfill God’s purposes and 
designs, we will seek to discharge duty, not only because it is 
useful, right and obligatory, but cheerfully and joyfully also, 
because such performance only exalts, refines and sublimes the 
whole man in God’s appointed way. 


238 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


These faculties have their abuses, and they may and do 
become vicious, even to the wreck of business and ruin of hus¬ 
bands and fathers, when in connection with an unregulated 
vanity, they prompt to a magnificent extravagance of expendi¬ 
ture for beautiful and costly apparel, furniture, or works of art 
and luxurious environments generally, beyond their income; 
while the attainment of a meek and gentle spirit costs time and 
vigilance only, and carry with them an assured blessing and 
felicity. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

OF THE INTELLECT, OR CURIOSITY IN GENERAL. 

The intellect of man, in each of its faculties or powers, 
aspires to knowledge and activities peculiar and appropriate to 
each several faculty; and in the adult or in the child is never 
absolutely idle. As the instinct of wonder prompts to inquiry, 
the intellect is always inquiring into the valuable or the value¬ 
less, the real or the speculative, the comprehensible and finite 
or the Infinite, which is necessarily incomprehensible by finite in¬ 
telligences, except as it may be revealed in works, in laws, or by 
other revelation. It may inaugurate useful activity upon a sound 
basis in the known, or idle activities entirely on the basis of the 
imagination or of hope only. Its functions are diversified, and so 
is the curiosity of individuals. The function of the intellect or 
of its several faculties, is to observe and remember objects, re¬ 
lations, events, causes and effects, to reflect, compare and judge 
of them, and learn theknowable ; and by comparison and judg¬ 
ment to judge, and from the past and the known to forecast 
the future that ought to be known . 80 Of course the child or 
the adult of active intellect is always conscious of his own men¬ 
tal operations, or may be, and so may judge and know something 
of those of others— 

“Curiosity, who hath not felt 

Its spirit and before its altar knelt! ” 83 

The intelligent child, as soon as intellect manifests itself 
at all, exhibits it in seeing, tasting, handling, smelling and listen- 



239 


OF THE INTELLECT, OR CURIOSITY IN GENERAL. 

ing to every tiling or sound within the reach of its senses, and 
even by breaking up or tearing things to examine their con¬ 
tents ; and very soon, Christ-like, further evinces it in inquiries 
betraying its thoughts, which are often difficult for or beyond 
the power of the elders to answer. And this curiosity may be 
rightly or wrongly indulged, may be virtuous or vicious in 
tendency, or idle ; may be practical, useful and philosophic, or 
may be visionary, wain and directed to abortive searches into 
realms of impious questioning, or criticism or defiance of the 
supreme wisdom, in which even Angels fear to tread. And 
the chief difference between the wise and the unwise, the dis¬ 
ciplined and the untutored, is not that the former think more 
than the latter, but that the disciplined study, learn and think 
from a sounder basis, with more judgment and to a better pur¬ 
pose. 

When this curiosity engages the intellect in the pursuit of 
any necessary or practically useful acquirement of knowledge, 
such as the knowledge of himself and of the things and persons 
with whom he has to deal and their circumstances, or the phy¬ 
sical sciences, or the science of mental, moral or religious 
philosophy, or the laws of things, of persons or of states, if its 
studies do not cause neglect of the more urgent present duties 
and learning of the daily life or its proper occupations, it is in 
the performance of its right and designed office, and the intel¬ 
lect is itself virtuously employed . 81 

When it engages itself in prying into any of the private 
affairs and individual offices, relations and duties of others, and 
their acts and employments, their domestic infelicities and man¬ 
agement, except for their benefit alone; or when it prompts to 
idle talk or to hearing it, to eaves-dropping and listening at 
keyholes, to malicious suspicions and slanderous utterances and 
conclusions, and runs to uncharitableness and mischief, or does 
these things for the sake of undue advantage to one’s self or 
any depreciation of others, it is an offence against the God who 
gives to every one enough to do to attend well to themselves 
and their own affairs; and against neighborhoods and people 
whose peace and happiness it unnecessarily disturbs . 82 And 
even when the untrained or uninformed intellect of the idle or 
vacant minded does no other mischief, it injures the man or 


I 


240 VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 

woman by prompting him to every waste of time to gratify idle 
and frivolous curiosity— 

“ As down the pane, the rival rain drops chase, 

Curious he’ll watch to see which wins the race ; 

And let two dogs beneath his window fight, 

He’ll close his bible to enjoy the sight!” 

This idle curiosity is omnivorous, and no one at all given 
to its indulgence can tell, unless he keep a- record of his daily 
transactions, how great a part of his time, given him for better 
purposes, runs to loss in the hearing of idle news or in idle sight¬ 
seeing: and for such, 

“But a bonfire or a city’s blaze, 

A gibbet’s victim, or a nation’s gaze, 

A female atheist, or a learned dog, 

A monstrous pumpkin or a mammoth hog, 

A murder or a miser; ’tis the same— 

Life’s follies, glories, griefs, all feed the flame.” 

And, with some items of higher moment—to spread broad¬ 
cast over the land some daily items of this class, is the chief 
business of the newspaper. But all these may teach some les¬ 
son of the need of care, prudence, wisdom or skill, if it be not 
acquired at too much cost of precious time, or has not been al¬ 
ready sufficiently learned; or, if the sight-seeing or tale-telling 
and hearing, or item-reading be not indulged without seeking 
and imbibing any lesson of wisdom derivable therefrom. But 
for all mankind useful studies and the pursuit of useful knowl¬ 
edge and genuine wisdom is the life-long destiny. 

This curiosity in its normal activity is but a hunger of all 
or some of the mental faculties, each for their appropriate work 
or pabulum, a thirst for a various knowledge and varied studies 
in the educated and the wise, and perhaps for mere events or nar¬ 
ratives and the motives and causes of personal acts in the vulgar, 
and no one can exist without this curiosity, except the fool or 
the dullard. 

“How many a noble art, now widely known, 

Owes its young impulse to this power alone !” 

And no human being ought to seek, or can rightly seek, to 
extinguish or repress curiosity, either in himself or the child he 
trains, except as to matters that concern others only, and 
ought to be and are sacred in their privacy or are mere common 


OF THE INTELLECT, OR CURIOSITY IN GENERAL. 241 

news and trivial gossip—which last will become distasteful to 
him when, if ever, he becomes really interested in useful learning. 

And so the most active intellect itself requires the guid¬ 
ance of sound judgment, that it may seek its proper food, and 
not chaff or poisons. It must be 'directed, guided and tutored, 
not extinguished or retarded, by a soundness of judgment born 
of experience and thought, and the constant influence of a right 
conscience, and a rational fear of the great Law-giver and His 
laws. And this sound judgment no man can attain without a 
broad basis of knowledge and experience, or, the unquestioned 
acceptance of the instruction of the disinterested and the wise, 
or of those having special skill in the matter inquired of. And 
hence mere conceit and insubordination may ruin the young. 
It will certainly convert them into very meddlesome and dis¬ 
agreeable associates. 

The intellect is too generally made but the slave of some 
master passion or passions, and engaged chiefly in working out its 
or their aims, seeking only the knowledge required therefor: 
or it is the slave of daily necessities, seeking only to know that 
which is essential to the maintenance of the daily life or the con¬ 
stant gratification of some animal appetites, lust of dominion, or 
vanity. But when the intellect studies to know only all that 
pertains to one’s own earthly interests, or the gratification of 
animal instincts, all which, of course, must be known, the man 
or woman has fallen below the full stature of his manhood or 
her womanhood and of mankind, as God organized it to be ; and 
his intellect grovels below its high and varied functions. He 
may be outwardly respectable, but never can be a reliably moral 
or religious person, nor really trusted ; except, perhaps, in 
the constant advancement of his own interest only. Such 
worldly wisdom, if it ruin not the possessor, ruins even the un¬ 
fortunates, who have with him relations which put them, in any 
degree, in his power, or of trust in him. The sound basis of 
fixed moral and religious principles, not the mere dogma per¬ 
haps, but the abiding, active, influential life of moral principle 
in his soul, is wanting, to control him, and render him a good and 
safe citizen of the commonwealth of business. 

Thus the intellect itself, when inert, sluggish and un¬ 
informed or little informed, may be of no real value, even to its 

P 


242 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


possessor, and even dangerous to others : and, when diverted to 
or by follies, accidents, scandals, evil passions and filthy conver¬ 
sations from its proper pursuits, may be actually mischievous : 
and only when wisely an(J rightly directed, active and laborious, 
its every faculty doing its proper work, will it acquire such 
varied stores of knowledge and powers of action, as gives round¬ 
ness, fullness and completion to the whole man; making him a 
really wise, trusty and religious being—an ornament and blessing 
to the community; and a curiosity, not repressed, but rightly di¬ 
rected from infancy, can alone effect this. The fitting children 
for a business by the elementary studies of the common school 
and the commercial college prepare them to earn a living, and 
achieve one great good; but will scarcely content parents studious 
of the true respectability and honor of their offspring, even if they 
indulge for them no higher aspirations. And, if they desire more 
ambitiously that they shall be, like Washington, 

“As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, 

Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm,” 

they can never hope, in any contingency or opportunity, to real¬ 
ize the desire, except through a diligent and laborious general 
culture of the whole man, in addition to a thorough education to 
his special avocation. 

But there is a still worse use of the intellect, even when it 
is trained and highly informed, when it is employed in the ser¬ 
vice of our own baser appetites and passions, by wooing and 
winning others only to corrupt, betray or ruin them, or by 
sophistries and bribes reconciling the weak and the ignorant to 
minister to our own vicious or criminal designs—a vice so pal¬ 
pable, that it meets prompt condemnation from even the rude 
and ignorant. Such vices scarcely need the passing rebuke of 
the moralist, for they are spontaneously and promptly condemned 
by all: and of them Pope has given the whole needful philoso¬ 
phy in his Essay on Man— * 

“ Yice is a monster of so frightful mien, 

As to be hated, needs but to be seen ; 

But seen too oft, familiar to the face, 

We first endure, then pity, then embrace.” 


OF THE PERCEPTIVE FACULTIES, ETC. 


243 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

OF THE PERCEPTIVE FACULTIES-AND OF OBSERVATION, 

PERCEPTION, MEMORY AND READING. 

As all these blind elementary appetites, instincts, desires, 
and passions, and perhaps others, early and spontaneously begin 
to act, and may, from the beginning and ever, lead astray into 
excesses and perversions, injurious to others, to self or to both, 
it is obvious that the educational duty, other than that of teach¬ 
ing reading, writing and arithmetic, both of parent and child, 
begins with the earliest manifestation of instinct: and, as the 
child must note, learn, know and remember objects, their prop¬ 
erties and attributes, his own motives and the relation, sequence, 
order and cause, of changes, acts and events, in order to judge 
aright or draw from them right conclusions for himself, it be¬ 
comes one of the earliest duties to lead him to discern the right, 
to train, inform and energize the intellectual faculties and 
the habits of observation, attention, perception and memory, and 
to teach him his mother tongue or language at least, and the 
art of reading, which opens up to the child the stores of all 
learning, much of it extraneous to his own experience and possi¬ 
bilities of observation, and brings them within his reach. 

There are three schools or fields of intellectual improve¬ 
ment in nature. One is that of our own observation, percep¬ 
tion, memory and judgment of external things, persons and 
events, their properties and action upon other things and beings, 
and their relation to each other and their causes and effects. 
Another is that of internal consciousness, which takes cogni¬ 
zance of our own appetites, desires, passions and faculties, or of 
their operations, knowing these intuitively; and, by reflection 
upon them, their expression and external and internal manifesta¬ 
tions, acquires a knowledge of one’s own and others’ elements of 
character and conduct. These are the schools of common ex¬ 
perience, alike open to all everywhere, without money and with¬ 
out price : and the training of the child through these is always 
possible to intelligent parents. The third is by far the widest. 


244 


VIA VINCENDI MORALIS. 


but perhaps the more obscure and difficult field of exploration, 
especially to those who do not acquire wide knowledge of their 
own language and the exact meaning of its words—and that is 
the field of learning opened to us in the books of masters of 
science and men of thought, experience and practice, best skilled 
in that line of study and department of art, science and religion, 
which the student aspires to know and to practice for life, and, 
perhaps, for a livelihood. And only the works of the best mas¬ 
ters or teachers are really worthy of study by any one. 

And there are four classes of intellectual faculties, or forms 
or degrees of activity of them to be trained—1st, the perceptive, 
or those which note external or material objects and their ac¬ 
tion and manifestation ; 2d, the consciousness or practice of in¬ 
tuition, which by attending to them, notes internal activities; 
3d, memory or memories of multiform kinds or the power to 
recall what has been in the past, and forms and events, as well 
as dimensions and attributes ; and 4th, the reasoning faculties, 
which note and know resemblances, differences, necessary se¬ 
quences and relations or causes and effects, and enable the hu¬ 
man being, from the past to know and predict the future, and 
from an act to foreknow its consequences. 

The ordinary curriculum of school and academical studies 
usually onJy fits, or should at least fit, the student for the quick 
and ready comprehension of all that he may be able to learn 
from books or verbal teaching, and trains some or all of the 
faculties to a degree of strength, endurance and quickness : and, 
if it succeeds in doing this, and the individual educated to this 
extent has really mastered the school studies so far, he is then 
but entered only on the threshold of learning: but he is fitted 
to acquire from books all other necessary learning by his own 
proper efforts, with or without a teacher, except perhaps, the 
learning that comes from self-consciousness and reflection. 

But, if during all these school-days of study of dry rudi¬ 
ments of knowledge, the parent has given to the child only the 
advantages of the school and has taken no pains or part in the 
child’s education except in aid of the school studies, the child’s 
intelligence and his faculties may have been suffering injury 
nevertheless. He may have learned by rote only and by prac¬ 
tice, the school studies, without comprehending them, and may 


245 


OF THE PERCEPTIVE FACULTIES, ETC. 

have become daily less observing of external objects and the 
things revealed by consciousness, and heedless of cause and ef¬ 
fect. He may be and have been utterly heedless of every les¬ 
son to be gathered from bis own experience in the household, 
the street, the play ground, from bis consciousness of emotion 
and desires and the effects of things indulged and denied, from 
the action of his faculties and the association or efficacy of ideas, 
or from the events occuring or heard of anywhere. And yet 
every accident even has its moral, being not a mysterious dis¬ 
pensation of providence, but due ordinarily to negligence of 
one’s self or another, or lack of safe machinery, or the proper 
skill or caution, which is requisite, somewhere. And it is a 
law of nature, that we suffer, not for our faults only, but for 
those of our associates. All these lessons and the lesson of duty 
involved therein, it is the special duty of the parent to indicate 
and teach. 

Whether the full perception of objects and their properties 
and effects, be the act of a single faculty or of a group of dis¬ 
tinct faculties taking cognizance of form, color, weight, size, 
number, etc., it is the duty of parents to see to it, that the chil¬ 
dren are trained alike in the school of observation and percep¬ 
tion of external things, and all their properties, forms, colors 
and qualities, and in the consciousness and perception of their 
own internal moods, impulses, capacities, activities and tempta¬ 
tions, and the outward signs thereof in others : so that they may 
early acquire a growing knowledge of things and of mankind, 
among whom they live and among whom they must have per¬ 
petual dealings. And, although the child may, in the school, 
acquire a more or less thorough knowledge of the language of 
his country, and of the rudiments of arithmetic, grammar, geog¬ 
raphy and composition, and crude notions of the character of 
his associates, and be fitted to acquire any book knowledge, he 
can have little or no capacity to discriminate truth from error : 
and can only lumber up his mind with erroneous or inconsistent 
theories and much utterly unprofitable, as well as some useful, 
learning, without a trained judgment or teacher. 

Everything that is seen, is not necessarily perceived. Sight 
is the impression an object makes upon the eye : perception is 
the deep impression it makes upon the mind. And the same 


246 


VIA M0RALIS VINCENDI. 


is true of all the senses and their objects, such as sounds, flavors, 
odors, and colors. Perception of objects of sight, hearing, taste, 
touch or smell requires such a degree of fixed attention to them in 
their flight, as imprints upon the memory their forms, properties 
and attributes, so that they can be recalled and described at will. 
Without this degree of attention, there comes, either no real 
knowledge of aught but the most familiar objects, or a loose, indef¬ 
inite or uncertain and defective, erroneous or evanescent knowl¬ 
edge even of them. Every child sees objects, but while one sees 
them so that it can tell little or nothing about them, others will 
so see them that they will have their name and image so clearly 
and distinctly impressed upon the brain as to answer very cor¬ 
rectly all questions as to form, color and every visible property 
thereof. And one child will read and hear a description of 
them, or a narrative of facts and occurrences, and, if asked to 
tell them, can tell little or nothing; while another will tell in 
his or her language, or in the very words of the original, the 
substantial facts or exact properties, if not the incidental or more 
minute ones. One child will, in the course of a day, exhibit 
many emotions and desires, joy, anger or pain, and the next day 
will be able to tell nothing of either ; while another will tell and 
tell again its experiences of varied emotions when alone or with 
others. All these tellings are a valuable training, and are to be 
encouraged and invited at proper times, and not repressed : and, 
herein lies, in child training, the great value of the patient, lov¬ 
ing mother, as the father’s time is too apt to be otherwise and else¬ 
where engrossed away from his children and from their, to them 
really useful, prattles. It is a good practice to have each child 
daily tell its experience and day’s history. It is a duty of all 
parents to thus practically cultivate in themselves and in their 
children, this habit of attention and thus practice perception, 
memory and reflection. 

Any or each of our instincts and appetites may prompt the 
intellect to vague and illusive day-dreams and imaginations, to 
the neglect of all that is real and attainable. The child, who 
is not better employed, is very apt to dwell in a region of his 
own imagination, a realm of reverie and not of fact, and to ac¬ 
quire a growing intensity of aversion to the real duties and to 
the useful knowledge and labors of life ; and these vain imagin- 


OF THE PERCEPTIVE FACULTIES, ETC. 247 

ings are apt to render him self-willed, insubordinate, fickle, dis¬ 
contented, vain and unsettled. Every parent must study to bet¬ 
ter and more practically employ the child in beneficial amuse¬ 
ment, practical observation or real study or work, which excludes 
opportunity for this luxurious or visionary dreaming. 

Lastly, reading is primarily the work of the perceptive fac¬ 
ulties ; but the best ability merely to read rapidly is of little 
value in the acquisition of knowledge from books, unless it is 
accompanied by a thorough and exact understanding of every 
word read: for a misconception of a single word will pervert 
the meaning of an author, and consequently teach a wrong les¬ 
son. To acquire knowledge through the perceptive faculties by 
reading, implies and demands a prior concurrent study of the 
force and meaning of, or of the idea represented by the words 
read. The sense of no word should be guessed at or imagined 
by the reader from its context only, but ascertained, if unknown, 
by reference to a standard dictionary, and learned. The value 
of reading cannot, any more than that of commodities, be meas¬ 
ured by quantity, even when useful and instructive works are 
read. Idea follows idea : and each must be comprehended, to 
get the real force of the whole, and all must be revolved in one’s 
own mind, if of value, in order to be digested, assimilated, fixed 
and incorporated into the very structure of our own mind. One 
line that impresses a great truth, is of more worth than whole 
pages of cursory reading. The quick apprehension and supposed 
rapid mastery of things, may bring a fugacious knowledge of 
them ; but a slower and more laborious process of study can 
alone permanently fix it in the mind : and, in the beginning of 
study, ensure their permanent accession to the stock of knowl¬ 
edge. To oversee this training of faculty and permanent acqui¬ 
sition of knowledge and its storing up for future ready use; 
and to see that all opportunities for it are really improved ; and 
to know that the child does not simply dream idly, and vainly 
repeats by rote words and sentences, but really studies, compre¬ 
hends and assimilates all that is taught, and especially whatso¬ 
ever it is taught in reference to its life business and the philos¬ 
ophy of the physical, mental and moral constitution of man, is 
the great imperative duty of the father, the mother, and under 
them the tutor. 


248 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


The offices of paternity and maternity, however lightly 
assumed or esteemed, are therefore no light undertakings: and 
the better either sex is qualified to discharge this office, the bet¬ 
ter prospect they have of actually and efficiently discharging it 
aright; and by their own careful discharge of duty, to ensure 
that their children shall be, not a burden and shame, but a joy 
and an honor to themselves and a credit to the republic, a stay, 
support and consolation of their declining years, and true, 
honored and beloved servants of God, in the spheres for which 
they fit themselves and to which He shall call them, only accord¬ 
ing to their real, not apparent or self-asserting, capacities and 
merits. And the youth so trained is likely to have every capac¬ 
ity to fill some of the many ordinary spheres of usefulness, honor, 
emolument and power, that others cannot have, or having, can 
not see or seize his opportunity. On earth, there are no higher 
or graver responsibilities than those of parentage: for upon their 
due discharge depend, not only the destiny of one’s own off¬ 
spring, but the progress or retrogression of nations and of the 
world: and this work of progress or retrogression goes on ever 
through God’s fixed laws, and the right or perverted free-will 
of man. 


CHAPTER XL. 

THE DUTY OF JUDGMENT AND THE FACULTY OF REASON OR 
KNOWLEDGE OF CAUSATION. 

But the child, the man, the woman, not only needs to ob¬ 
serve, perceive, know, learn and remember, but in every act and 
in every actual movement of life and business, that rises above 
the instinctive, he needs to judge also, unless he follows estab¬ 
lished custom or routine, in which he is generally safe. In order 
to judge rightly, having a sound knowledge of facts and quali¬ 
ties, he must also be able to trace causes and effects, or the order 
of necessary sequences, and by this ability, and through the 
processes of comparison, analogy, analysis and synthesis applied 
to known facts or laws of causation, to form correct judgments, 



THE DUTY OF JUDGMENT, ETC. 


24 £ 


and to foreknow, as to any enterprise or proposed act, the un¬ 
known future from the known past. And hence, while almost 
any man man may be trained to routine work, and to do well in 
it, few are fitted to undertake new and great enterprises. This 
judgment, in combination with the instinctive faculty of faith or 
belief in the wonderful, is indispensable to the soothsayer or the 
seer in private or public affairs. To carefully educate these 
analytic, synthetic, analogical, and cause and effect discerning 
faculties, is one of the duties pertaining to the higher education 
of man, although, perhaps, not absolutely essential for those who 
are destined for the lower functions of mere routine work only, 
or as subordinate hireling workers merely. In a degree the 
education of this faculty, like the education of every other, is 
attained by reflection on and through the ordinary known phe- 
nomina, occurrences and transactions of life: but its careful 
education by special studies, home and school training is one 
of the duties of parents who have means and ability to fit their 
children for the higher and more profitable enterprises and 
spheres of life. And, although the art of syllogistic reasoning 
and the study of logic, may, in a degree, train the faculties in the 
schools, it is best trained and informed by reflection upon all the 
varied occurrences of the home, the school, the transactions of 
one’s own and others’ life and business and its results, of states and 
of the world : for every act and event has its cause, and produces 
its effects, and either can be traced from their known history or 
antecedents. For any effect is but the necessary and constant 
sequence of a cause. And it is the special duty of the parent 
in these wide realms to be the educator of his own offspring: 
and it is the duty of the growing child, by conversation with 
the wise and his own thought, to be a self-educator. 

Judgment has many spheres of exercise, in the home, the 
school and multitudinous businesses, and all cannot be wise in 
every sphere. They must select and prefer according to their 
occupation. The wisest are reliably wise chiefly in the line of 
their own studies and life experience ; and judgment should in 
all cases, there, first and specially—by constant reflection toil 
after wisdom. Everywhere one will excel in judging one class 
of things or affairs, and another’s another class. Hence in appro¬ 
priate matters we consult the lawyer, architect, physician, or 


250 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


minister, or skilled mechanic or merchant: and wisdom or folly 
is exhibited even in the act of seeking and taking counsel. 
Universal soundness of judgment and unerring wisdom in every¬ 
thing is the dream of the tyro, or of arrogance and conceit; and 
belongs only to God. He, who pretends to it, is dangerous in 
his folly or is a charlatan. In whatever class of things or deeds, 
man’s judgment is best informed and most constantly exercised, 
in that ordinarily it will, if of any value anywhere, be sound 
and excellent, and perhaps in that only. This judgment, in 
regard to the common affairs of life, with which the child has 
to deal, or to transact with his companions, parents and tutors, 
and in regard to their feelings and relations towards him, and 
their authority over him and the modes and times of its exer¬ 
cise, is often so early self-trained, that he early begins to take 
practical advantage of the weakness, affection, fears or occupa¬ 
tions of others. Children quickly learn when and what either 
parent and tutor will probably do, say or endure as to any good 
conduct or misconduct; and early begin either really to endeavor 
to do well, or to act the part of the hypocrite or eye-server, or 
to take secret advantage of the knowledge or judgment of the 
parent, to their own rapid degeneracy from virtue, and moral 
debasement. Shams and threats may seem to, but never really 
long rule the child : and the pretence of penitence is easy. The 
vigilant parent may thus be easily informed as to the early 
period at which the judgment of his own child begins to oper¬ 
ate, and from which he may profitably train it and demonstrate 
to the child the laws of genuine wisdom, if he himself has any 
judgment or wisdom, or any capacity to teach them; and if 
either parent has none, he or she should begin to train it in 
himself or herself. 

But, even if the parents be lawless, capricious, unstable, 
inconstant and fickle, they may still train this faculty, not in 
the best way by the aid of their own example, but by the daily 
examples of success or failure, of plenty or penury, of respecta¬ 
bility or squalid vice, of honor or dishonor, of felicity or wretch¬ 
edness, which are to be seen and read of everywhere; and, by 
pointing out to them their origin and cause, and that like 
causes, operating everywhere, produce like effects, and must 
produce them in their own affairs. 


SELF-LOVE, OR SELFISHNESS. 


251 


Except perhaps controlling vicious tendencies and impulses, 
there is no more prolific source of misconduct in the young than 
false or vague hopes and an utter lack of right judgment as to 
the necessary consequences of one or another line of conduct. 
No more certain incentive to right action can be found, than is 
found in the law of cause and effect, and the absolute certainty 
of the result and consequences that follow right dispositions and 
conduct, or persistent wrong, even in temporal affairs ; the latter 
always lowering confidence, good will and a good name, which 
commonly open all the avenues to success; and the contrary 
line of conduct tending always to open all, or even the best 
of them. Ill-doing, and unstable or vicious dispositions, leave 
their victim to inferior works, comparative idleness, urgent 
debts, or crime. 

As no man can judge soundly or well everywhere, and 
each judges best in things the most familiar to him, a sound 
judgment demands that men or youth, undazzled by exceptional 
successes in uncertain speculations, take no step in, nor engage 
in any venture or business not approved by his own expert 
judgment or the expert judgment of a disinterested friend, if 
he is fortunate enough to have one; and that, having entered 
upon an undertaking advisedly, he neither doubt nor falter, 
look backward nor take a backward step, nor palter in indecis¬ 
ion ; but pursue his object with constant and close calculation, 
undeviating faith and judgment, and a persistent energy of 
body and mind engrossed in its pursuit. Whatever we pursue, 
not with undivided and unfaltering heart and with all our mind, 
soul and strength, we are most apt to pursue in vain, in infancy 
or manhood. 


CHAPTEK XLI. 

SELF-LOVE, OR SELFISHNESS. 

Self-love is not necessarily self-conceit, although it tends 
to foster it. The combined activity of all our more selfish in¬ 
stincts, seeking each its own proper objects and gratifications, 
is true self-love. And this self-love has nothing in it that is 



252 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


necessarily or intrinsically wrong. It is not selfishness in any 
bad % or sinful sense of the word. It is as much a duty, though 
not of as high a character perhaps, as the conscientiousness^ 
which urges to right-doing or the veneration which prompts to 
the worship of God. We are placed in a world where self must 
be cared for, with instincts pointing to the things to be cared 
for, and a just regard primarily for one’s own interests and a 
moderate gratification of self, within bounds not injurious to- 
one’s self or others, is a duty, and not a sin. God gives us the 
desire and the opportunity of enjoyment; and, within due 
bounds, its gratification is no wrong, but a right and a duty. 
It is vain to expect others to care for ourselves or those who 
are most immediately given into our care, if we neglect that 
duty under any promptings whatever. “Est omnibus a natura 
tributum , se, suosque tueri ”—these words of Cicero embody 
the decree of nature and of nature’s God: and, in men and 
women rightly constituted, certain instincts universally impel to 
the discharge of that duty, and make its discharge a source of 
pleasure. The first and nearest duty which God imposes upon 
any one and every one is that of care and protection of himself 
or herself ; and a broader and more comprehensive self-love in¬ 
cludes those persons and things more specially committed to his 
or her care: and this duty no man can discharge without vigi¬ 
lant care of his own health and strength and his own interests 
and properties, and an energetic and successful advancement 
and attainment of them. A man or woman devoid of this self- 
love or self-interest is a lusus naturce —a monster of folly or 
insanity. He can be rightfully disinterested only in not wrong¬ 
fully advancing his own interests at the expense of the just in¬ 
terests of others. The man or woman who professes more, or 
to have no selfishness or sense of self-interest, or to care more 
for the interests of others than of self, is either perverted or a 
victim of a shallow self-deluding sentimentality, insane, foolish, 
or hypocritical, or too weak in the selfish instincts to succeed in 
life : and he will at some time awake from the illusion of this dis¬ 
interestedness ; or, if trusted on the faith of the delusion, will 
awake some victim from the faith in his or her delusion. 

A criminal or immoral selfishness consists in the exclusive, 
inordinate or too constant action of any or all our appetites, in- 


SELF-LOYE, OR SELFISHNESS. 


253 


stincts or affections which have regard to self or family only— 
an exclusive devotion to selfish interests without a due and duly 
limiting activity of those moral and religious affections or sen¬ 
timents which regard the equal welfare or rights of others and 
our duty to the common Creator of all. 84 It is self-seeking be¬ 
yond the limitations which the equal rights of all, and justice 
and benevolence towards all, impose. A man may, by legal, if 
not illegal means, plunder every one who puts himself within 
his power; and still, in the commercial sense, be honest, and 
among the-solicitors of donations for charitable or religious ob¬ 
jects, be noted for liberality. He may foreclose liens against 
the improvident, or the unfortunate, legally take their homes 
and properties at half their value, doubling his own means: 
and yet, because he puts or gives a portion of his unconscionable 
gains to charitable or religious objects, be deemed benevolent 
or become a pillar of the church. He may practically rob with 
one hand God’s creatures, and do partial penance only, or 
gratify vanity and ambition, by comparatively insignificant gifts 
with the other; and be through life, 

“The gaze of fools—the pageant of a day !” 

The selfish people are not all of one class. Each may be 
the victim or the slave of one inordinate appetite, instinct or 
affection only, as of gluttony, avarice, vanity, ambition, concu¬ 
piscence, or of many or all combined. And the sources and 
manifestations of a criminal selfishness are as various as the 
ruling passions or the combination of such passions in man—so 
that, in our intercourse with mankind, we will find among those 
who are utterly selfish, a variety of shades of characters, and 
manners as multifarious as their variety of external features, 
which, in their infinite varieties, moralists and metaphysicians 
could but vainly attempt to delineate. Yet, in all mankind, the 
radical affections, instincts, propensities, and faculties, like their 
essentials of external feature, are the same: and their primary 
functions, due limits and right improvement may be profitably 
studied and learned everywhere by poet, orator, philosopher, 
statesman, teacher and pupil. 

The true measure, and limit of self-love is that we love our 
neighbor as ourselves, and that we love God, the author and 


254 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


giver of all being and of all things to us and to all, and duty, 
supremely; in other words, that we so love ourselves and our 
own, and so discharge our duties to ourselves and our own, that 
we fail not to discharge the apparently less near and less urgent 
duties which affect others; that we daily and reverently devote 
a portion of our time to the study of God’s law as it is made 
known to us by observation and reflection, science or revelation, 
and practice it daily; that we hourly and constantly do the 
deeds of this law and bring forth the fruits, rather than profess 
to do them or blazon to others an expression of our repentance 
for not having done them heretofore and an aspiration to do 
them hereafter; and that we permit no idol of human passion 
or affection to dethrone God from our hearts; that, as to 
rights and duties, we recognize the practical equality of all. 

Real repentance and a Godly sorrow for misdeeds or omis¬ 
sions, which brings forth fruits of restitution and amendment 
mete for a genuine repentance daily, is good, because it reforms 
the man and really brings him nearer to God and His image: 
but the superficial penitence that exhausts itself in words, sen¬ 
timentalities and sighs, and repents daily through life without 
actual reformation, or that comes only when the illicit things 
idolized by the passions have lost their charms or are about to 
slip from our grasp forever, and which can only usher an un¬ 
trained and undisciplined soul into eternity fresh from the gal¬ 
lows or the slums and the contagions of vice and crime—who 
can tell whether it is the miraculous reformation of the dying 
thief upon the cross in an age of miracles and in the very pres¬ 
ence of the Wonder-worker, or the mere vain delusion of a ter¬ 
rified, unchanged and unrenewed soul ? The same selfishness 
that indulges itself uncontrolled in life regardless of wrong and 
injury to others, is capable of any self-deceit in the hour of im¬ 
minent peril, and on the eve of the flight of all its earthly delu¬ 
sions, and its own transition to the judgment seat of the unerring 
Judge and the eternal world. 


i 


THE TEMPTATION AND FALL. 


255 


CHAPTEE XLII. 

THE TEMPTATION AND FALL. 

Temptations are not limited to either penurious or pros¬ 
perous conditions, or to low or exalted station. The very same 
temptations in different forms, or by different approaches per¬ 
haps, assail us in either condition— 

“ Think not that fear is sacred to the storm : 

Stand on thy guard against the smiles of Fate, 

Is Heaven tremendous in its frown ? Most sure, 

And, in its favor, formidable too !” 

The danger attends man in his every condition, as it awaited 
him alike in his paradise of an innocent Eden, and upon his 
expulsion into the world of sin, want, toil, and woe beyond it. 

If the views here taken of the instincts, appetites, affections, 
desires and passions of man and of their sphere and law, be cor¬ 
rect, it is apparent that, with or without a spiritual eternal 
tempter, man is subject from within himself to evil spirits, and 
without an external tempter the internal are all sufficient in 
multitudinous temptations to sin. Without these internal mo¬ 
tives to temptation, external tempters must operate in vain. 
The appeal of temptation is ever to or from some of these in¬ 
stincts, appetites or affections, and their cravings, good in them¬ 
selves and in their proper sphere and purpose ; but which a free 
moral agent has the power to indulge reasonably and rightly if 
reason and conscience reign supreme, or to excess or pervert to 
wrong, in transgression of the laws of their sphere and limi¬ 
tation. Every elementary instinct, affection or faculty, in its 
moment of casual perverted or excessive activity, becomes a 
temptation. The law of Adam’s Eden, not to eat of the fruit 
of the tree of the knowledge “of good and evil,” is the law of 
to-day : for, although we may know good and happiness with¬ 
out a violation of God’s law, we learn the evil only through its 
violation by ourselves or others. Any excessive craving beyond 
ability, or indulgence beyond means or moderation, brings us 
wretchedness; and every perversion brings disorder, disease or 


256 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


pain, sooner or later. Without sin there could be no knowledge 
of evil. The sin of Eve and Adam was the same sin that has 
been committed by and wrecked the happiness of all their pos¬ 
terity in their own several persons since the Eden days—a dis¬ 
obedience of the law of the Creator, and perversions of appetite, 
instinct or affection, and their corresponding desires or aspira¬ 
tions to unholy or unlawful ends or means—and from being 
sources of moderate, attainable and right enjoyment, to be 
made sources of unattainable, painful and rebellious cravings 
or excessive indulgences, and all the misery which either can 
bring. 

And as every yielding to temptation and wrong-doing 
weakens the power of resistance and fortifies unlawful desire ; 
and, as the law of inheritance carries down to children the de¬ 
pravity or excellence of the ancestor, so every act of immorality 
and disobedience depraves, not only the actor, but his or her 
offspring: and the result is the same, whether the evil act be 
committed or the evil desire indulged willfully and conscious of 
its wrong, or only through culpable negligence and want of 
study and reflection, and the ignorance consequent upon them. 
“I will visit the sins of the fathers upon the third and fourth 
generation of them that hate me, and show mercy unto thous¬ 
ands of them that love me and keep my commandments” is 
thus the divine law of the progress and retrogression of the 
world, conducing either to the depravity or the redemption and 
•elevation of man’s successive generations. And so, under this 
divine law, mankind is and becomes ever the controller of the 
destiny of the race ; and the race can advance with certainty 
only, by each member of its successive generations striving in¬ 
telligently to be “perfect as the Father in Heaven is perfect,” 
who, ever working and abounding in all things, endoweth all, 
of His infinite bounty, according to their work, services and 
•employment of talents. If any man could only look along the 
line of his successive generations and trace through them all 
the consequences of his own violations of the moral and spirit¬ 
ual laws of God operative through His law of inheritance 
through many generations, he would surely give less thought 
to earning for them the luxuries, pomps and splendors of life, 
.and far more to all that pertains to his own and his children’s 


THE TEMPTATION AND FALL. 257 

moral and spiritual training and riglit conduct, in all the affairs 
and relations of life. 

But man could not be a free agent without a power of 
choice. If he cannot err, his great intellectual gifts would be 
vain and needless endowments. If left free to know and choose, 
he could not be endowed with his wonderful variety of instincts, 
appetites, affections, prompting desires, aspirations and ambi¬ 
tions still more infinite and various without also assuming the 
responsibility of their just guidance and direction. If he was 
so constituted as compulsorily to walk in one ordained narrow 
path and not depart from it, then he would be incapable alike 
of progression or retrogression, of sin or virtue. But the ability 
to elect involves the possibility of an election for worse as well 
as better: as the gift of uninformed intelligent faculties implies 
a duty to learn and to know. If created with fewer instincts, 
appetites and affections, and capable of fewer aspirations and 
desires, his sources and possibilities of enjoyment and impulses 
to activity would have been correspondingly diminished, as well 
as his temptations and tendency to sin. If endowed with knowl¬ 
edge as well as faculty, where should be its limit, or should it 
be infinite ? And then, if it were possible that it approach the 
infinite, how dangerous and terrible would be the strifes of 
■power and passions : and, if limited, how could man progress 
beyond the limit assigned? Nothing displays more marvel¬ 
ously the wisdom of the Creator in His final work of the 
creation of man, than the soul with which He inspired him, 
abounding in incentives and faculties fitted for infinite progress. 
So that, notwithstanding the entrance of some vice, sin and 
misery into the world, and in despite of the fact that many 
will remain wholly ignorant, the whole race of man, and every 
member of it, has still abundant reason to adore the wisdom 
and beneficence of God in his creation as he is; for the possi¬ 
bilities of perhaps boundless progression which such creation 
opens to him, even though it be counterpoised by the possibility 
-of limitless retrogression, and for the justice and benevolence 
which the scheme of the earth and its inhabitants indicates to 
be attributes of its divine author. 

That we are so fallible, and at the same time, thus capable 
of progression, indicates to everyone the duty of a vigilant guar- 

Q 


258 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


dianship over our passions, and a due study of their sphere 
and limitations, and the necessity of curbing even the highest 
and noblest of them and their excesses and perversions, by main¬ 
taining the supremacy of reason and conscience and the divine 
law and its Author. Success in seducing others into error and 
sin is no triumph or sign of power; but of a weakness common 
to both seducer and seduced. The sin of Adam and Eve was 
not the indulgence of a vulgar appetite in eating the material 
fruit, nor was that the temptation. It was the loftier and nobler 
but deluding aspiration to become as Gods; “ knowing good 
and evil,” a too ready belief in what was accordant to their de¬ 
sires, a rejection of God and faith in Him and His law—the 
same sins that have beset and overcome the noblest and most 
aspiring of mankind. And it impresses upon all, the absolute 
need of that daily prayer of the divine Teacher: “ Lead us not 
into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” and teaches the neces¬ 
sity of questioning our hopes and beliefs before walking in ac¬ 
cordance with them, and the necessity of avoiding and fleeing 
from all occasions of temptation that may betray us into any 
violation of the divine law. For every temptation is unavailing 
and fruitless without its corresponding opportunity : and this 
latter inflames desire, while desire naturally seeks opportunity. 
And, therefore, opportunity to yield to besetting temptations 
must be avoided by ourselves, and never accorded to others. 
Especially, in the periods of youth and vigorous manhood or 
womanhood, is the seductive power of passion at its height; and 
even the best are then specially liable to be irresistibly tempted, 
and few live who have passed these periods and not at sometime 
fallen— 

“Ah vice ! how soft are thy voluptuous ways ! 

While boyish blood is mantling, who can scape 
The fascination of thy magic gaze ? 

A cherub-hydra, round us dost thou gape, 

And mould to every heart thy dear delusive shape.” 

And then, is occasion and opportunity to be tempted, or to 
indulge it, most carefully to be avoided ; and firm resolution is 
required to sentinel all the avenues 'to the heart with fixed prin¬ 
ciples of right and duty then indispensable to man ; and, perhaps, 
the safest of all muniments then, is a complete engrossment in 
some current and necessary avocation, and beneficial and practical 


THE INEVITABLE DESTINY AND THE EVITABLfe, ETC. 259 

study of such avocation in life, or preparation for it. Leisure 
and idleness but harbor all temptations, when 

“ Satan still some mischief finds, 

For idle hands to do.” 

And among the wisest and best of God’s ordinances is that 
which compels every individual to enter upon some life work 
suited to his capacity, and gives to all a period of preparation to 
fit himself or herself for that life work, and for the promotion 
of his own welfare and enjoyment compels all, at every age, to 
as constant work as they are capable of, and to the full extent of 
the capabilities of each and all. 


CHAPTER XLIII. 

THE INEVITABLE DESTINY AND THE EVITABLE. SERVICE, THE ULTI¬ 
MATE DESTINY OF EARTH. MAN’S RESPONSIBILITY. 

Therefore, to rich and poor, and great and little alike, there 
is a common destiny and duty—that of service. That inevita¬ 
ble service is two-fold—the direct and voluntary service of God, 
and the indirect service to Him by compulsory or voluntary ser¬ 
vice to men and things of earth. In hut or palace, digging or 
ruling, superintending or superintended, commanding or obey¬ 
ing, willing or rebellious, man’s wants, condition and active 
spirit and body impel him by some daily activity to serve, for 
good or ill, God or the power of evil, by business or otherwise, 
to benefit or injure His creatures. For him, in the body, there 
can be no Nirvana, or realm of utter idleness or perpetual rest, 
nor can there be for his restless, ever-active soul, here or in the 
hereafter. For him, so long as body or spirit retain aught of 
their known God-given constitution, right activities or wrong 
only are possible : and the former only can be blissful. So far, 
he is predestined by his very nature. Where then is the free¬ 
dom which alone can be the basis of his responsibility ? 

It is inevitable that he should be, and remain, subject to 
the wise laws of his own constitution, physical and psychical, 



260 


VIA VINCENDI MORALIS. 


and to due conformity to the laws of the beings and things 
around him, and the relations he assumes to them, and his rela¬ 
tions to the Supreme, if he would live and not perish. 

But he is at full liberty to choose his line of service, and to 
enter into or refrain from entering into relations and associa¬ 
tions with others, and to fit himself for his line of service and 
for due felicity in the relations assumed, or to neglect so to do. 
And he may make this choice unconsciously and ignorantly or 
impulsively, or diligently and intelligently ; or, in other words, 
foolishly and wickedly, or rightly, wisely and well. When he 
grows up frolicsome and mischievous, unintelligent, heedless 
and animal only, and too eager to get goods and self-indulgences 
to take time to fit himself for higher avocations, he practically 
makes his selection of his line of service for life, as completely 
as if he had intelligently willed that he should remain all his 
days a hewer of wood or drawer of water, or a doer of other 
like rude services. 

Our habits of speech tend unduly to debase or exalt certain 
modes of earthly service. Thus he, who serves in positions of 
authority and trust, is said to rule: and he, who devotes him¬ 
self to the work of the ministry or monastery, or to the teach¬ 
ing of Sunday school, is said to devote himself to the service of 
God and to “ serve God,” as if there was on earth no other ser¬ 
vice of him. The like is said of those who, at times, unite in 
adoration, prayer or praise to the Omnipotent. And all these 
do render Him a special voluntary offering and service. But 
there is an indispensable daily service of Him and His creatures, 
unavoidable by any right liver. Hone can live in the world 
honestly without a voluntary or grudged and compulsory daily 
service, in doing upon earth some work of an earthly kind, pre¬ 
destined to be done by man only, by which in winning means 
to gratify or supply himself, he serves others by producing what 
they need on earth or to promote their progression heaven¬ 
ward. All, willing or unwilling, must so serve God, by doing 
that earthly work, and so minister also to the needs of His other 
creatures. And the knowledge of that fact; and such intelli¬ 
gent motive in the work done is capable of dignifying any of the 
so-called meanest toils of earth, or any of its highest or lowest 
i.mocent enjoyments of pleasure : while the same work grudg- 


THE INEVITABLE DESTINY AND THE EVITABLE, ETC. 261 

ingly done, in the spirit of “the galley slave scourged” to his toil, 
but fills the current days with rebellion and infelicity. “Six 
days shalt thou labor and do all that thou hast to do” is the com¬ 
mand, not less imperative, and its fulfillment is an inexorable 
necessity of nature for the honest and the true: and even 
for the wicked and the criminal. For, even the pauper, idle 
and criminal classes, when evading or seeming to evade this 
command, but evade steady, honorable studies and toil, and 
change from honest, honorable and beneficent works to the 
toils of beggary, dependence, or of knavish and' criminal pur¬ 
suits and the toils incurred by efforts to conceal and evade ill- 
repute and punishments. The one other thing, that specially 
dignifies all the toil of any and every kind, making it more hon¬ 
orable and profitable to the doer, is his own skill, speed, excel¬ 
lence, calculation and fidelity to its performance : and God has 
justly ordained that such superior skill, excellence, calculation 
and fidelity should command its superior rewards. And such 
work, done in such a spirit, is the highest practical every day 
worship of the Supreme Artificer. He, who has superior skill 
and calculation in digging and constructions, and in the right 
employment of the rudest kind of labor, may, by and in the 
construction of railways, canals, telegraph and telephone lines, 
become rich more speedily than any isolated skilled worker of a 
higher grade, who gives no employment to others, like the doctor, 
lawyer, minister or small trader. So God rewards them who feed 
his less capable children. A wide range of scientific, literary, 
artistic or aesthetic culture may make the more elegant and 
prized companion ; but the thorough mastery and indefatigable 
practice of some needful department of the life-works of earth, 
can alone make rich in this world’s goods, or assure in abund¬ 
ance its necessaries, luxuries, or means for His service in charity 
and church—or, in other words, the most perfect service in any 
sphere of our earthly life, in doing God’s terrestrial work, must 
and does, in general, command the highest earthly rewards ; and 
the most perfect and diligent spiritual work superadded will 
command for him the greatest and purest felicity here and here¬ 
after. And God has ever, in this world, two kinds of work for 
every human being—the work of earth that conduces to the 
abundance, perfection and attainment of the needful and living 


262 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


things and products of the earth, vegetable, animal or human— 
and that other work spiritual and divine, that fits each human 
being for felicity here and hereafter, as a citizen, servitor and 
comrade of the divine spiritual kingdom on earth and in heaven, 
and for blissful communion with its King, and with each of the 
real subjects of that kingdom. 

Death, and the farewell, and severance of the loving from 
the loved, and the pangs attending them, are as inevitable as 
is the service of the Almighty will by earthly work of some 
kind: but, whether these partings or that hour of dissolution 
shall be hopeless and full of agony only, or be radiant with a 
well-grounded hope, sure and steadfast, of a blessed immortality 
beyond the grave, is left to the free will and choice, and 
free thought and actions of men. Throughout life, each man, 
woman and child, in his or her several service of whatever 
kind, is ever serving well or ill, and conscious or unconsciously, 
must serve the good and holy Supreme Ruler, by purity 
and righteousness in his work, or he or she unrighteously and 
wickedly serves Mammon and the spirit of evil only; must 
daily progress to or from the gloriously bright kingdom of 
the Supreme King, and His realms of assured bliss, or into 
realms of darkness and woe here and hereafter: and the 
hereafter must be known by his life here. And when the deep 
shadows of the night of death gloom around him, he cannot but 
acknowledge and see clearly that his own thoughtful, prayerful 
right doing or his own dallying with or yielding to wrong or 
overweening desires or impulses, or his more deliberate choice 
has advanced him in, or has withdrawn him from, the way along 
which gleams the celestial light of a blessed immortality. None, 
who know themselves and their own life history, can truly say that, 
irrespective of their own choice and volition, or willing dalliance 
with temptation, God, the author of all good and wise laws, has 
decreed arbitrarily their low estate in life, or their evanescent 
losses and ills, or their final perdition beyond the grave. And, 
whether good betide him or ill, in this sublunary sphere or else¬ 
where—either alike come to him through study of conformity 
to the wise law of creative wisdom which he is endowed with 
capacity to learn, and a power of willing to obey, obedience to 
which could work for him good and blessing only ; while dis- 


THE INEVITABLE DESTINY AND THE EVITABLE, ETC. 263 

obedience only could bring upon him inevitable evils consequent 
on liis own acts and omissions, or on those of his chosen associates 
in business or follies, in domestic life or society. The moral 
laws, like the laws of the material universe, thus vindicate alike 
the wisdom, justice and benevolence of its Omnipotent Ruler: 
and declare the inevitable and just responsibility of man, as the 
real architect of his own destiny and that of his children, asso¬ 
ciates and mankind in general, under and by force of wise, stable, 
knowable laws of His creation, existence, progress and deca 
dence. If law, order and knowledge is for man himself preferable 
to anarchy, uncertainty and ignorance, then, that man is ruled 
by laws of creation, and is blessed or cursed through conformity 
to or disregard of them, must follow inevitably from the jus¬ 
tice and benevolence alike of the Deity: and that it ever 
has been, is now and ever will be so, is no impeachment either 
of divine wisdom, justice or beneficence. 

Besides this inevitable destiny of service, man has another 
destiny, according to the wisdom, efficiency and excellence or 
inferiority, or cheerful or dissatisfied character of that service ; 
the former, whether directly or consciously rendered to God or 
indirectly rendered to Him through service to man, ever con¬ 
ducing to happiness and the latter to infelicity only. 

And each instinct and faculty may conduct man into paths 
widely divergent forever. Through them, alike the world and 
providence daily offer to every human being the choice of two 
paths, the one of safety, honor and happinsss on the one hand, 
which is the way of sound morality and true religion, or the 
moral path to victory in all life’s conflicts—and, on the other 
hand, extends the seemingly flowery and enchanting path of 
sensuous and animal delights and self-indulgence, easier of access 
than the other to the unwise, rebellious and ignorant, but 
hemmed in by pit-falls, dangers and miseries, which none can 
tread without encountering seductions that bring upon its way¬ 
farer defeats, failures and woes innumerable. Man and woman 
here are inevitably destined to walk in one or the other of these 
paths. The intellectual, diligent, upright, benevolent, God- 
obeying and vigilant have neither time nor inclination to stray 
into the latter and rarely approach it, and, walking in the for¬ 
mer, surely attain a reasonable felicity. The ignorant, the un- 


264 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


informed, the unintelligent, undisciplined, idle, thoughtless and 
negligent, can move chiefly in the latter only, to their own con¬ 
stant disappointment, failure, wretchedness and final perdition. 
And thus the whole human race, amply endowed with intelli¬ 
gence, will and fortitude to persistently choose aright, choosing 
unwisely or wickedly the wrong path of seeming pleasure, is pre¬ 
destined under the divine law of man’s necessary physical and 
psychical constitution to want and woe, or through obedience 
to that law, to felicity here and bliss hereafter. May every 
reader of this book choose the better way—the shining path to 
a victory that brightens more and more to the perfect day, and 
to an endless felicity here and hereafter under and in obedience 
to the divine law of his soul and of the universe in which the 
humblest can play no contemptible part, is the concluding prayer 
of the author. 



APPENDIX. 





NOTES. 


The following notes, illustrative of the doctrines or princi¬ 
ples evolved in this work, were not originally contemplated as 
a part, of the same. They are intentionally, taken only from 
histories of the United States, or some of its States, although 
illustrative examples of like significance might be made from 
the history of every nation and tribe, classic or modern, civil¬ 
ized or savage, who have any recorded history. One note, and 
one reference only, illustrating the origin of the witchcraft delu¬ 
sion, as it prevailed at Salem, now Danvers, Massachusetts, in 
the laws and like criminal prosecutions of the mother country, 
is taken from Hume's History of England. 

A brief chapter on The Religious or Spiritual Instincts and 
Duties, also not in the Index of Chapters, and not numbered, 
will be found at pages 120-124. 

An Analytical Index, which has cost much labor, has also 
been added, making reference easy to any of the topics or doc¬ 
trines of the work, largely enhancing its value. ■ 


Note 1 —Chapter I. 

“ True, we found upon our route,” says the missionary Joutel, 
of the Indians of the southwest of America, “ some who, *as far as we 
could judge, believed that there was something exalted, which is 
above all ; yet they have neither temples nor ceremonies, nor prayers 
marking a divine worship.” 

“ And yet,” says Bancroft of the North American Indians, 
“ they believed that some powerful genius had created the world ; 




268 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


that unknown agencies had made the Heavens above them and the 
Earth on which they dwelt .”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 285 . 

“ The piety of the savage was not a sentiment of mere passive 
resignation ; he sought to propitiate the unknown, to avert their 
wrath, to secure their favor. If, at first, no traces of religious 
feeling were discerned, closer observation showed that everywhere 
among the red men, even among the roving tribes of the North, 
they had some kind of sacrifice and of prayer .”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. 
U. S., 288 . How much more can be said of multitudes living in 
civilized and Christian lands ? 

After describing the struggles and agony of mind, through 
which George Fox, the shepherd’s boy, who founded the Society 
of Friends,sought the vital truth amid the conflict of religious sects, 
the historian Bancroft says, “ One morning, as Fox sat silently by 
the fire, a cloud came over his mind ; a baser instinct seemed to 
say, ‘ All things come by nature ; ’ and the elements and the stars 
oppressed his imagination with a vision of Pantheism. But, as he 
continued musing, a true voice arose within him, and said, ‘ There 
is a living God.’ At once the clouds of skepticism rolled away : 
mind triumphed over matter, and the depths of conscience were 
cheered and irradiated with a light from Heaven. His soul en¬ 
joyed the sweetness of repose, and he came up in spirit from the 
agony of doubt into the paradise of contemplation. Having 
listened to the revelation which had been made to his soul, he 
thirsted for a reform in every branch of learning. The physician 
should quit the strife of words and solve the appearances of nature 
by an intimate study of the higher laws of being. The priests, 
rejecting authority and giving up the trade in knowledge, 
should seek oracles of truth in the purity of conscience. The law¬ 
yers, abandoning chicanery, should tell their clients plainly, that 
he, who wrongs his neighbor, does wrong to himself. The heaven¬ 
ly-minded man was become a divine and a naturalist, and all of 
God Almighty’s making .”—2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 330 . 

If the earnest quest of truth wrought in George Fox, by the di¬ 
vine blessing that always attends such quest, a true revelation ; the 
revelations wrought out through a laboring reason and spiritual¬ 
ity are ordinarily safe and just ; but not always those prompted by 
the instinct of wonder or faith alone ; nor is it safe to ignore all 
authority. Happy are they, whom their unperverted, God-inspired 
religious instincts lead to a right knowledge of the indwelling 
Deity ; but happier they, who can add to this instinctive belief the 


APPENDIX. 


269 


convictions of their God-given reason, guided by the same divine 
spirit, and are able to give impregnable reasons for the faith that 
abides in them. Instinct alone may deceive, and reason may err; 
but together, in essential points of faith, they are nearly infallible 
in ordinarily gifted minds, when they are free from the bias of 
controlling instincts, and, especially, when aided by His omni¬ 
present, indwelling spirit, to know aright, through His works and 
laws, the great Law-giver. 

The same historian, says of William Penn and the Indians, 
“ He spoke with them of religion, and found that the tawny skin 
could not exclude the instinct of a Deity. The poor savage peo¬ 
ple believed in God and the soul, without the aid of metaphysics.”— 
2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 386. But this mere instinctive view of 
God is sure to be discolored and perverted by other excessive or 
ruling instincts, and to be attended with many illusions. 

Note 2. 

“ The moral world is swayed by general laws. They extend, 
not over inanimate nature only, but over man and nations—over 
the policy of rulers and the opinion of masses. Event succeeds 
event according to their influence : amidst the jars of passions and 
interests, amidst wars and alliances, commerce and conflicts, they 
form the guiding principle of civilization, which marshals incon¬ 
gruous incidents into their just places, and arranges checkered 
groups in clear and harmonious order. Yet, let not human arro¬ 
gance assume to know intuitively, without observation, the ten¬ 
dency of the ages. Research must be unwearied, and must be 
conducted with indifference : as the student of natural history, in 
examining even the humblest flower, seeks instruments that may 
unfold its wonderful structure without color and without distor¬ 
tion.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 397. 

“ The meek New England divine,” says Bancroft, referring to 
Jonathan Edwards, “in his quiet association with the innocence 
and simplicity of rural life, knew that in every succession of revo¬ 
lutions, the cause of civilization and moral reform is advanced. The 
new creation,” such are his words, “ is more exalted than the old.” 
“The wheels of providence,” he adds, “are not turned about by 
blind chance, but they are full of eyes round about, and they are 
guided by the spirit of God. Where the Spirit goes, they go. 
Nothing appears more self-determined than the volitions of each 
individual ; and nothing is more certain than that the providence 


270 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


of God will overrule them for good. The finite will of man, free 
in its individuality, is in the aggregate subordinate to general laws. 
This is the reason why evil is self-destructive : why truth, when it 
is once generated, is sure to live forever ; why freedom and justice, 
though resisted and restrained, renew the contest from age to 
age, confident that the messengers from Heaven fight on their side, 
and that the stars in their courses war against their foes.”—3 Ban¬ 
croft’s Hist. U. S., 390. (See chapter on Predestination, free-will.) 

Note 3. 

“ Man feels that he is a dependent being. The reverence for 
universal laws is implanted in his nature too deeply to be removed. 
The Infinite is everywhere ; and, everywhere man has acknowl¬ 
edged Him ; beholding in every power the result of an infinite at¬ 
tribute.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 73. 

“ Every man is a little sovereign to himself. Freedom is as 
old as reason itself, which is given to all, constant and eternal, the 
same to all nations. * * * Truth and conscience are not in 

the laws of countries ; they are not one thing at Rome and another 
at Athens ; they cannot be abrogated by senate or people.”—3 
Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 352. 

“ In a work dedicated to the princes and nations of Christen¬ 
dom, and addressed to the common intelligence of the civilized 
world, the admirable Grotius, contending that right and wrong are 
not the evanescent expression of fluctuating opinions, but are en¬ 
dowed with an immortality of their own, had established the free¬ 
dom of the seas, on an imperishable basis.”—-2 Bancroft’s Hist. 
U. S., 325. 

Only opinions and human laws differ. Right and justice are 
the same everywhere. And every right thinker in physics, philos¬ 
ophy or statesmanship, recognizes the changeless immortality of 
divine law. 

Note 4. 

“As poetry is older than critics, so philosophy is older than 
metaphysicians. The mysterious question of the purpose of our 
being is always before us and within us, and the little child, as it 
begins to prattle, makes inquiries which the pride of learning can¬ 
not solve. The method of solution adopted by the Quakers was 
the natural consequence of the origin of the sect. The mind 
of George Fox had the highest systematic sagacity ; and his doc- 


APPENDIX. 


271 

trine, developed and rendered illustrious by Barclay and Penn, 
was distinguished by its simplicity and unity. The Quaker has 
but one word, the inner light, the voice of God in the soul. That 
light is a reality, and, therefore, in its freedom, the highest revela¬ 
tion of truth ; it is kindred with the spirit of God, and, therefore, 
merits dominion as the guide to virtue: it shines in every man’s 
breast, and, therefore, joins the whole human race in the unity of 
equal rights.”—2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 337. 

The like intellect, faculty and instinct, evince the equal right 
of each to desire, enjoy, believe and know for himself or herself. 
Hence no man can have a right to impose his own creed, quest of 
pleasure or duty upon another, whether that creed or belief be the 
conclusion of his God-given reason, or of some real or imaginary 
inspiration. 

Note 5. 

“We are men,” said the Illinois to Marquette. After illus¬ 
trating the weakness of the Wyandots, Brebeuf adds, “They are 
men.” The natives of America were men and women of like en¬ 
dowments with their more cultivated conquerors; they have the 
same affection and the same powers ; are chilled with an ague and 
burn with a fever. We may call them savage, just as we call fruits 
wild : natural right governs them. They revere unseen powers ; 
they respect nuptial ties ; they are careful of their dead ; their 
religion, their marriages and their burials show them possessed of 
the habits of humanity, and bound by a federative compact to the 
race. They had the moral faculty which can recognize the dis¬ 
tinction between right and wrong : nor did their judgment of rela¬ 
tions bend to their habits and passions more decidedly than those 
of nations, whose laws justified, whose statesmen applauded, whose 
sovereigns personally shared, the invasion of a continent, to steal 
its sons.—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 300. 

“ Even in the early days of the most dissolute settlers on this 
continent in Canada, the morals of the colonists received attention. 
In 1635, a college of the order of Jesuits was established at Quebec, 
under the direction of the Marquis of Gamache ; and this institu¬ 
tion was of great advantage in improving the morals of the people, 
which had grown to a state of licentiousness.”—Lanman’s Hist. 
Michigan, 9. 

And speaking of the trading post of Michilimackinac under 
the governorship of Champlain, Lanman says, “ There was, how- 


272 


VIA M0RALIS VINCENDI. 


ever, some trade carried on with the savages at that period, and it 
was a point of general resort by the French, who deemed it neces¬ 
sary to retain a Jesuit at this post for the preservation of the 
morals of the colonists.”—Lanman’s Hist. Michigan, 38. 

Note 6. 

“ The great strife of England and France for American terri¬ 
tory could not, therefore, but involve the ancient possessors of the 
continent in a series of conflicts, which have at last banished the 
Indian tribes from the earlier limits of our republic. The picture 
of the unequal contest inspires a compassion that is honorable to 
humanity. The weak demand sympathy. If a melancholy inter¬ 
est attaches to the fall of a hero, who is overpowered by a superior 
force, shall we not drop a tear at the fate of nations, whose defeat 
foreboded the exile, if it did not indeed shadow forth the decline 
and ultimate extinction of a race.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 236. 

Among nations, tribes and individuals, this law everywhere 
is working out its results : and, even in despite of poor laws and 
Christian charities, in civilized communities sways terrestrial des¬ 
tinies, of families and individuals : and their imaginary or real fit¬ 
ness for Heaven, does not necessarily ensure their continuance, 
power or perpetuity on earth, without a due fitness and capacity 
for the God-ordained work of earth. It may only hasten their 
departure to those realms for which they are best adapted. For 
no one discharges his whole duty to God, who, being placed upon 
the earth, neglects his earthly duties and earthly work. 

Note 7—Chapter III. 

“ To hirm also,” says Bancroft, writing of the North American 
Indian, “ intelligence was something more than a transitory acci¬ 
dent : and he was unable to conceive of a cessation of life. His 
faith in immortality was like that of a child, who weeps over the 
dead body of its mother, and believes that she yet lives. The 
same motive prompted them to bury with the warrior his pipe and his 
manitou, his tomahawk, quiver and bow, ready bent for action, and 
his most splendid apparel ; to place at his side, his bowl, his maize 
and his venison, for the long journey to the country of his ances¬ 
tors. Festivals in honor of the dead were also frequent, when a 
part of the food was given to the flames, that so it might serve to 
nourish the departed. The traveler would find in the forests a 


APPENDIX. 


273 


dead body placed on a scaffold, erected upon piles, carefully 
wrapped in bark for its shroud ; and attired in warmest furs. If 
a mother lost her babe, she would cover it with bark, and envelop 
it anxiously in the softest beaver skins ; at the burial place, she 
would put by its side, its cradle, its beads and its rattles, and, as a 
last service of maternal love, would draw milk from her bosom in 
a cup of bark, and burn it in the fire, that her infant might still 
find nourishment on its solitary journey to the land of shades.”— 
3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 294-295. 

Whence this universal faith in immortality, in a body shadowy 
or spiritual unlike this solid earthly body—varying only in the in¬ 
cidents of the modes of immortal life—unless from a God-given 
faculty of faith, divine inspiration or a corrupted universal tradi¬ 
tion ? Is not either of these more trustworthy than the vain doubts 
and questionings of an arrogant, exceptional skepticism ? 

Note 8. 

Perhaps one of the most illustrious instances of readiness to 
•seize opportunities for self-advancement in English history, is 
found in the life of Oliver Cromwell, the chief of the Puritan armies 
of England, and later, Lord Protector of the kingdom. “ Crom¬ 
well,” says the historian Bancroft, “ was one of those rare men, 
whom his enemies cannot name without acknowledging his great¬ 
ness. The farmer of Huntingdon, accustomed only to rural oc¬ 
cupations, unnoticed till he was more than forty years old, engaged 
in no higher plots than how to improve the returns of his farm 
and fill his orchard with choice fruit, of a sudden became the best 
officer in the British army, and the greatest statesman of his time, 
subverted the British constitution, which had been the work of 
centuries ; held in his own grasp the liberties which the English 
people had fixed in their affections and cast the kingdom into a new 
mould. Religious peace, such as England, till now, has never 
again seen, flourished under his calm mediation ; justice found 
its way even among the remotest Highlands of Scotland ; com¬ 
merce filled the English marts with prosperous activity during his 
peaceful protection ; his fleets rode triumphant in the West Indies ; 
Nova Scotia submitted to his orders without a struggle ; the Dutch 
begged of him for peace, as for a boon ; Louis XIV. was humiliated ; 
the pride of Spain was humbled ; the Protestants of Piedmont 
breathed their prayers in security ; the glory of the English name 
was spread throughout the world.” 


274 


VIA MOEALIS VINCENDI. 


Not less remarkable, in respect to the seizure of opportunity 
for the aggrandizement of himself and family, is the more recent 
example of the great Napoleon. And the conduct of Washington 
in availing himself, with most unequal forces, of every opening for 
successful battle, and evading it when victory was hopeless; and 
in the wisdom which secured our independence and laid broad and 
deep the foundations of the freest of free states, is a part of our 
own memorable annals, not only familiar to his own countrymen, 
but illustrious throughout the world. 

Note 9—Chapter IV. 

What the historian Bancroft declares to have been the faith of 
Penn, is the faith prompted by the natural reason of the unper¬ 
verted man, as well as by the Holy Scriptures : “To him no spirit 
was created evil; the world began with innocency; and as God 
blessed the works of His hands, their natures and harmony magni¬ 
fied their Creator. Discord proceeds from a perversion of powers, 
whose purpose was benevolent; and the spirit becomes evil only 
by a departure from truth.” And again reverting to the freedom 
from the perverted and perverting control of dominant instincts, 
which is the source of all error, wrong and crime, he taught, that 
“ When the mind is not free, the devil can accompany the zealot 
to his prayer, and the doctor to his study. The soul is the living 
fountain of immortal truth.” And this is the same freedom, of 
which Saint Paul teaches, “ wherewith Christ has made us free.” 

Note 10. 

Tens of thousands have been ruined by rash speculations 
prompted merely by the aspiration to grow rich and great by other 
means than through skill and toil, or have ruined others. Not¬ 
withstanding all the divining of wizards, none have grown even 
rich by searching for concealed treasures, although sometimes'such 
treasure unsought has been found. And the first colonists at 
Jamestown, Virginia, having laboriously mined and laden a vessel 
with that which they mistook for gold, were saved from starvation 
only by the arrival of timely succor from abroad. God’s ordinary 
opportunities of honorably advancing one’s own true welfare by 
studious skill and industry, are thus lost by a vain, rash, impetuous 
pursuit of shadows of imaginary or corrupt wealth, power or pleas¬ 
ure. 


APPENDIX. 


275 


Note 11. 

Speaking of the Quaker reformation—and the remarks apply as 
well to that of the puritans—Bancroft says that, which the author 
hopes, may be realized as to the common mind from the simple 
and easily understood lessons of this book as to morals. “The 
moment was arrived when the plebeian mind should make its 
boldest effort to escape from hereditary prejudices ; when the 
freedom of Bacon, the enthusiasm of Wickliffe, and the politics of 
Watt Tyler were to gain the highest unity in a sect; when a popu¬ 
lar and, therefore, in that age, a religious party, building upon a 
divine principle, should demand freedom of mind, purity of morals, 
and universal enfranchisement. The sect could arise only among 
the common people. The privileged classes had no motive to 
develop a principle before which their privileges would crumble. 
‘Poor mechanics,’ said William Penn, ‘are wont to be God’s great 
ambassadors to mankind.’ ‘He hath raised up a few despicable 
and illiterate men,’ said the accomplished Barclay, ‘to dispense 
the full glad tidings reserved for our age.’ It was the comfort of 
the Quakers that they received the truth from a simple sort of 
people unmixed with the learning of the schools ; and, almost for 
the first time in the history of the world, a plebeian sect proceeded 
to the complete enfranchisement of mind, teaching the English 
yeomanry the same method of free inquiry, which Socrates had 
explained to the young men of Athens.”—2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 
33 °* 

The doctrine of the author includes incidentally that of Locke, 
and that of Penn, and more. “To Locke,” says Bancroft, “happi¬ 
ness is pleasure ; things are good and evil only in reference to 
pleasure and pain ; and to enquire after the highest good is as 
absurd as to dispute ‘whether the best relish be in apples, plums 
or nuts.” Penn esteemed happiness to be in the subjection of 
the baser instincts to the instinct of duty in the breast ; good and 
evil to be as eternally unlike as truth and falsehood ; and the in¬ 
quiry after the highest good to involve the purpose of existence. 
Locke says plainly that, but for rewards and punishments beyond 
the grave, it is certainly right to eat and drink, and enjoy what we 
delight in. Penn, like Plato and Fenelon, maintained the doctrine 
so terrible to despots, that God is to be loved for His own sake, 
and virtue to be practiced for its intrinsic loveliness.” 

The doctrine of this work is that pleasure or happiness con¬ 
sists in the active pursuit and normal, peaceable and harmonious 


276 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


enjoyment of the object of every instinct, affection and faculty, 
according to our just means and ability; and that such pursuit 
and enjoyment is a duty indicated by the human constitution; but 
that the highest and most exalted and exalting of these pleasures 
are those which arise from the supreme activity and calm suprem¬ 
acy of the intellectual faculties and the moral and religious in¬ 
stincts of man, without which the exorbitant cravings of the 
instincts bring us misery only. 

Note 12—Chapter V. 

The education of the American Indian, as described by Ban¬ 
croft, was exactly such as would develop the hardy, stoical, indo¬ 
lent, improvident, pleasure-loving, wayward, willful being, that he 
has generally been found to be. “On quitting the cradle,” says 
he, “the children are left nearly naked in the cabin, to grow hardy, 
and learn the use of their limbs. Juvenile sports are the same nearly 
everywhere ; children invent them for themselves ; and the traveler 
who finds everywhere in the wide world the same games, may 
rightly infer that the Father of the great human family Himself 
instructs the innocence of childhood in its amusements. There is 
no domestic government; the young do as they will. They are 
never earnestly reproved, injured or beaten ; a dash of cold water 
in the face is their heaviest punishment. If they assist in the 
labors of the household, it is as a pastime and not as a charge.” 
—3 Bancroft, 289. 

But, being from their cradle and their surroundings and the 
conversation of their elders, inspired with an emulation for the 
glory of war and of the successful hunter, these become the great 
object of their ambition and their sole pursuit in life.”—3 Bancroft 
Hist. U. S. 

And how active practice and emulation disciplines and trains 
the man is further manifested by the example of every man who 
attains greatness of any kind, including our own Washington. 
“Almost from infancy,” says the historian, “his lot had been the 
lot of the orphan. No academy had welcomed him to its shades, 
no college crowned him with its honors ; to read, to write, to 
cipher, these had been his degrees in knowledge. And now, at 
sixteen years of age, in quest of an honest maintenance, en¬ 
countering intolerable toils; cheered onward by being able to 
write to a school-boy friend, ‘ Dear Richard, a doubloon is my 
constant gain every day, and sometimes six pistoleshimself 


APPENDIX. 


277 


his own cook, having no spit but a forked stick, no plate but 
a large chip ; roaming along spurs of the Alleganies, and along 
the banks of the Shenandoah ; alive to nature and sometimes 
spending the day in admiring the trees and the richness of the 
land ; among skin-clad savages with their scalps and rattles, or 
uncouth emigrants that would never speak English ; rarely sleep¬ 
ing in a bed ; holding a bear-skin a splendid couch ; glad of a 
resting place for the night upon a little hay, straw or fodder, and 
often camping in the forests where the place nearest the fire was 
a happy luxury—this stripling surveyor in the woods, with no 
companion but his unlettered associates, and no implements of 
science but his compass and chain, * * * God had selected 
to give an impulse to human affairs, and, as far as events can 
depend on an individual, had placed the rights and destinies of 
countless millions in the keeping of the widow’s son.”—Bancroft’s 
Hist. U. S., 461. 

But while thus disciplined in the school of hardship and self- 
denial, he always attributed whatever he was to the wise counsels, 
instruction and example of the best of mothers ; and with equal 
fortitude and energy schooled himself in the science and practice 
of the soldier and the statesman, the patriot and the moralist, as 
opportunities offered, so that, when chosen Commander-in-Chief 
of the armies of the United States, he could offer gratuitous ser¬ 
vices to his country in her time of war and need, and was fitted 
to deserve and command confidence and trust equally in the arenas 
of war and peace. 


Note 13. 

It is so notorious as to hardly need notice, that Sir Isaac 
Newton, Galileo, Washington, Stonewall Jackson, and other of 
the really good and great men, civilians or soldiers, were not 
merely extraordinarily industrious, but remarkably devout men, 
preceding their great undertakings with fervent prayers to the 
Lord of the universe. But the faith of such men in themselves, in 
God, and in prayer, is not the inane or impious faith that demands 
or idly awaits a miracle, but was like that of William of Orange, 
of which Bancroft says : “His trust in Providence was so connected 
with faith in general laws, that in every action he sought the prin¬ 
ciple which should range it on an absolute decree. Thus, uncon¬ 
scious to himself, he had sympathy with the people, who always 
have faith in Providence. ‘Do you dread death in my company ?’ 


278 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


he cried to anxious sailors, when the ice on the coast of England 
had almost crushed the boat that was bearing him to the shore.” 
—Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 3. 

Note 14. 

What Washington, in his farewell address, inculcates in regard 
to political prosperity, is not less true as to individual prosperity. 
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosper¬ 
ity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain 
would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor 
to subvert those great pillars of human happiness, those firmest 
props of the duties of men and of citizens. The mere politician, 
equally with the pious man, ought to respect and cherish them. A 
volume could not trace all their connections with public and pri¬ 
vate felicity. Let it simply be asked where is the security for 
property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation 
desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in 
the courts of justice? And let us, with caution, indulge the sup¬ 
position that morality can be maintained without religion. What¬ 
ever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on 
minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us 
to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of relig¬ 
ious principle.—Wellard’s Republic of America Appendix, p. 

XXXVIII-XXXIX. 

But it is also equally possible, that the fervors of devotion 
may exist without any true and steadfast principle of morality—a 
real enthusiasm of worship without righteousness—veneration 
without conscience or an intelligent study of duty and of right. 

Note 15. 

“Not one of mankind,” says Penn, “is exempted from this 
illumination. God discovers himself to every man. He is in 
every breast, in the ignorant drudge as well as in Locke or Leib¬ 
nitz. Every moral truth exists in every man’s and woman’s heart, 
as an incorruptible seed ; the ground maybe barren, but the seed 
is certainly there.”—2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 357-358. The in¬ 
stinct to prompt to its acquisition and the faculty to acquire it are 
there, but not the truth itself. 

The theory of this work is akin to both that of Locke and 
that of Penn, yet not identical with either. “Locke,” says Ban¬ 
croft, “sought truth through the senses and the outer world. Penn 


APPENDIX. 


279 


looked inward to the divine revelation in every mind. Locke 
compared the soul to a sheet of white paper, just as Hobbes com¬ 
pared it to a slate, in which time and chance might scrawl their 
experience ; to Penn, the soul was an organ, which, of itself, in¬ 
stinctively breathes divine harmonies, like those musical instru¬ 
ments which are so curiously and perfectly framed, that when 
once set in motion they, of themselves, give forth all the melodies 
designed by the artist that made them. To Locke, conscience is 
nothing else than our own opinion of our own actions ; to Penn, it 
is the image of God, and His oracle in the soul.”—2 Bancroft’s Hist. 
U. S., 379.—God gives the faculties that inspire and the instincts 
that aspire to all truth ; but our actual knowledge and experience 
of good and evil has a two-fold source,—from sensible contact 
from things and beings of the outer world, and from our own inner 
consciousness, intuition and reflection. 

But a right conscience, inspiring to a right knowledge of 
things, and correspondent action, in life or death, and in low or 
exalted arenas, alone begets heroic spirits like that of Vane. “He 
reviewed his political career,” says Bancroft, “from the day he 
defended Anne Hutchinson to his last struggle for English liber¬ 
ties, and could say, ‘I have not the least recoil in my heart as to 
matter or manner of what I have done.’ * * * A friend spoke of 
prayer, that for the present the cup of death might be averted. 
‘Why should we fear death ?’ answered Vane. ‘I find that it rather 
shrinks from me than I from it.’ His children gathered around 
him, and he stooped to embrace them, mingling consolation with 
kisses. ‘The Lord will be a better father to you.’ ‘Be not you 
troubled, for I am going home to my Father.’ And his farewell 
counsel was, ‘Suffer anything from man rather than sin against 
God.’ When his family had withdrawn, he declared his life to be 
willingly offered to confirm the wavering and convince the ignor¬ 
ant. The cause of popular liberty still seemed to him a glorious 
cause. ‘I leave my life as a seal to the justness of that quarrel. 
Ten thousand deaths, rather than defile the chastity of my con¬ 
science ; nor would I for ten thousand worlds resign the peace and 
satisfaction I have in my heart.’ ”—2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 39. 

Note 16 . 

“The moral power of ideas is constantly effecting changes and 
improvements in society * * * Such is the force of an honest pro¬ 
fession of truth, the humblest person, if single-minded and firm, 


280 


VIA MORALIS YINCENDI. 


can shake all the country for ten miles around. The integrity of 
the inner light is an invincible power. It is a power which never 
changessuch was the message of George Fox to the Pope, “the 
kings and nobles of all sorts ; it fathoms the world, and throws 
down that which is contrary to it. It quenches fire ; it daunts 
wild beasts ; it turns aside the edge of the sword ; it outfaces in¬ 
struments of cruelty ; it converts executioners.” It was remem¬ 
bered that the enfranchisements of Christianity were the result of 
faith and not of the sword ; and that truth, in its simplicity, radiat¬ 
ing from the foot of the cross, has filled a world of sensualists with 
astonishment, overthrown their altars, discredited their oracles, 
infused itself into the soul of the multitude, invaded the court, 
risen superior to armies, and led magistrates and priests, states¬ 
men and generals in its train, as the trophies of its strength exerted 
in its freedom.—2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 350. 

The example of William Penn, when he was laboring under 
embarrassments caused by his public spirit and struggles in behalf 
of the Quakers, and in the cause of religious freedom and liberty 
of conscience generally, is worthy of emulation throughout the 
ages. “Live low and sparingly,” he wrote to his wife, “till my 
debts be paid ; ” yet, for his children, he adds, “Let their learning 
be liberal; spare no cost, for, by such parsimony, all is lost that is 
saved.” Agriculture he proposed as their employment—“Let my 
children be husbandmen and housewives.”—2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. 
S., 370.—Yet he was the son of a baronet who had held the rank 
in the British Navy of an admiral, and a believer in the revelations 
of the inner light; and that belief did not, in his practice, dispense 
with the need of a thorough education, nor does it with intelligent 
Quakers or really intelligent people in general. 

'Even the Aborigines educated their children according to 
their mistaken notions and customary habits. “The attachment 
of savages for their children is extreme,” says Bancroft; “and they 
cannot bear separation from them. Hence every attempt at found¬ 
ing schools for their children was a failure ; a missionary would 
gather a little flock about them, ‘and of a sudden,’ writes Le 
Jeune, ‘my birds flew away.’ From their insufficient and irregular 
supplies of clothing and food, they learn to endure hunger and 
rigorous seasons; of themselves, they became fleet of foot and 
skillful in swimming; their courage is raised by tales respecting 
their ancestors, till they burn with a love of glory to be acquired 
by valor and address. So soon as the children can grasp the bow 


APPENDIX. 


281 


and arrow, they are in his hand ; and as there was joy in the wig¬ 
wam at his birth, and his first cutting of a tooth, so a festival is 
kept for his earliest success in the chase. The Indian young man 
is educated in the school of nature. The influences by which he 
is surrounded, nurse in him the passion for war. As he grows up, 
he, in his turn, takes up the war song, of which the echoes never 
die away on the boundless plains of the West: he travels the war¬ 
path in search of an encounter with the enemy, that he too, at the 
great war-dance and feast of his band, may boast of his exploits ; 
may enumerate his gallant deeds by the curved feathers of the 
war eagle that decorate his hair ; and may keep the record of his 
wounds by shining marks of vermilion on his skin.”—3 Bancroft’s 
Hist. U. S., 269-270. 

Writing of the Iroquois, “The warriors,” says Lanman in his his¬ 
tory of Michigan, “cherished a sort of Spartan discipline through¬ 
out their confederacy. The young barbarians were urged to 
emulate, and often advanced to the dignity of their fathers. They 
were taught to hunt the wild beasts almost before their muscles 
were sufficiently strong to bend the bow, and to undergo the de¬ 
privations of hunger and cold in remote forests, in order to harden 
them for arms. Their character was constituted of all those ele¬ 
ments, which, in civilized or savage life, produce success, founded 
in cunning or courage. They were equally crafty and ferocious. 
They could crawl unseen along the track of their enemies, or rush 
down upon the French in fearless bands of naked and gigantic 
warriors. * * * An aged Onondaga warrior was taken in 1697, in 
an expedition of Frontenac, and delivered over to an Algonquin 
savage, who stabbed him with a scalping knife, for the purpose of 
ending his existence, after he had inflicted horrible tortures. ‘You 
ought not abridge my life,’ said this Roman of the wilderness, 
‘that you may learn to die like a man. For my part I die con¬ 
tented, because I know no meanness with which to reproach my¬ 
self.’”—Lanman’s Hist. Mich., 14-15. 

And so a false education, stoical, cunning, cruel, merciless, 
may pervert a man in one generation or many, so that right cul¬ 
ture attempted for generations fails to reclaim him. 

“’Tis education forms the common mind ; 

Just as the twig is bent, the trees incline.” 


282 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


Note 17. 

“ The nobler instincts of mankind are the same in every age, in 
every breast. The exalted hopes, that have dignified former gen¬ 
erations of men, will be renewed as long as the human heart shall 
throb. The visions of Plato are but revived in the dreams of Sir 
Thomas More. A spiritual unity binds together every member of 
the human family ; and every heart contains an incorruptible seed 
capable of springing up and producing all that man can know of 
God and duty and the soul. An inward voice, uncreated by schools, 
independent of refinement, opens to the unlettered hind, not less 
than to the polished scholar, a sure pathway into the enfranchisement 
of immortal truth. This is the faith of the people called Quakers, ’’ 
says Bancroft.—2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 326. 

And again, says Bancroft: “ The constitution of the human 
mind varies only in details ; its elements are the same always ; and 
the multitude, possessing but a combination of the powers and pas¬ 
sions, of which each one is conscious, is subject to the same laws, 
which control individuals. Humanity also, constantly enriched and 
cultivated by the truths it develops and the inventions it amasses, 
has a life of its own, and yet possesses no element that is not com¬ 
mon to each of its members.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 398. 

“ That man is the same in all ages and in all climates is doubt¬ 
less a general truth ; but it cannot be received without limitations. 
When considering the bodily structures of different races, the anat¬ 
omist would err, who should practice in his profession that there 
were no differences : and let us but open our eyes to the lights of 
history, and we shall be convinced that the politician would equally 
commit an error, who should proceed on the supposition that there 
are no original differences of mental constitution.”—Willard’s Re¬ 
public of America, appendix note A, p. 2. 

It is equally notable'in the spheres of private life and social 
intercourse : and it is this diversity of degree in instincts and fac¬ 
ulties, and different combinations of identical instincts and facul¬ 
ties, and difference of education and habit, that makes each and 
every several human being in a less or greater degree a separate 
study, and forever verifies the saying of St. Paul, that there is 
“ diversity of gifts, but the same spirit.” 

Note 18. 

“This constitution,” says Marshall, referring to the constitution 
of government prepared, at the request of the proprietaries, by the 


APPENDIX. 


. 283 


philosopher Locke, for the Carolinas, which was declared to be 
perpetual, “soon furnished an additional evidence to the many af¬ 
forded by the history of the human race, that experience is the only 
safe school in which the science of government is to be acquired ; 
and that the theories of the closet must have the stamp of practice 
before they can be received with implicit confidence : and the re¬ 
mark applies with equal force to every other human enterprize and 
to all periods of human life. 

“There is not a quality belonging to the white man,” say Ban¬ 
croft, “that does not also belong to the American savage ; there is 
not among the aborigines a rule of language, a custom or an insti¬ 
tution, which, when considered in its principle, has not a counter¬ 
part among their conquerors. The unity of the human race is es¬ 
tablished by the exact correspondence between their respective 
powers : the Indian has not one more, has not one less than the white 
man ; the map of the faculties is for both identical. When, from 
the general characteristics of humanity, we come to the comparison 
of powers, the existence of degrees immediately appears. The red 
man has aptitude for imitation rather than invention ; he learns 
easily ; his natural logic is correct and discriminating, and he seizes 
on the nicest distinctions in comparing objects. But he is deficient 
in the power of imagination, to combine and bring unity into his 
floating fancies, and in the faculty of abstraction to lift himself-put 
of the dominion of his immediate experience. He is nearly 
destitute of abstract moral truth—of general principles ; and, as a 
consequence, equalling the white man in the sagacity of the senses, 
and in judgment resting in them, he is inferior in reason and the 
moral qualities. Nor is this inferiority simply attached to the in¬ 
dividual ; it is connected with organization, and is characteristic 
of the race.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 302. 

And yet history records no instance in which one race has 
been more completely exiled or extirpated before another—not 
even the Canaanites, whom for their degradation, the Israelites 
were commanded to destroy : and among the individuals of civil¬ 
ized races, under a like law, the weak, the ignorant, the immoral 
and the undisciplined in like manner, either through their own 
depravity or their failure in the battle of life against the strong, 
suffer exile or annihilation, except as poor laws and Christian 
charity counteract the tendency. 


284 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


Note 19— Chapter VI. 

“There is a close analogy,” says Bancroft, “between the pop¬ 
ular revolutions of France and England. In France, the same 
symbols and principles re-appeared, but more rapidly and on a 
wider theatre. The elements of humanity are always the same ; 
and the inner light dawns upon every nation and is the same in 
every age.”—2 Bancroft, 354, 355. 

“Truths are identical and perpetual, in all ages, to all men.” 
li La verite , absolue es done une revelation menu de Dieu a Vhomme 
par Dieu lui-meme j et comme la verite absolue est perpetuellement 
apercue par Vhomme, et eclaire tout homme a son entree dans la vie , 
il suit que la verite absolue est une revelation perpetuelle et universelle 
a Vhomme .”—Cousin Fragmen, Phil. 2d ed., 310, 311. 

Note 20. 

“Mind refuses to rest; and active freedom is a necessary con¬ 
dition of intelligent existence. The instinctive love of truth could 
warm even the scholastic theologian ; but the light, which it kin¬ 
dled for him, was oppressed with verbal erudition ; and its flicker¬ 
ing beams, scarce lighting the cell of the solitary, could not fill 
the coionade of the cloister, far less reach the busy world.”—2 
Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 457. 

The inner light of the Quaker is none other than the light of 
man’s God-inspired reason, illumined by faith, or the divinely im¬ 
planted instinct of the love and worship of the Wonderful. “Ex¬ 
ulting,” says Bancroft, “in the wonderful bond, which admitted 
him to a communion with the sons of light of every nation and age, 
he rejected with scorn, the school of Epicurus ; he had no sympa¬ 
thy with the follies of the skeptics, and esteemed even the mind of 
Aristotle too much bent upon the outer world. But Aristotle him¬ 
self, in so far as he grounds philosophy on virtue and self-denial, 
and every contemplative sage, orators and philosophers, statesmen 
and divines, were gathered as a cloud of witnesses to the same 
unchanging truth.” “The inner light,” said Penn, “is the domes¬ 
tic God of Pythagoras. The voice in the breast of George Fox 
as he kept sheep on the hills of Nottingham, was the Spirit which 
had been the good genius of Socrates. Above all, the Christian 
Quaker delighted in the divinely contemplative Plato, the famous 
doctor of gentile theology, and recognized the unity of the inner 
light with the divine principle which dwelt with Plotinus * * * 

The inner light is, to the Quaker, not only the revelation of truth, 


APPENDIX. 285 

but the guide of life and the oracle of duty.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. 
S., 344. 

Note 21. 

Equanimity, or a well-balanced, self-controlling, and therefore 
probably all-controlling mind, is essential to success in man’s com¬ 
merce with others. Speaking of Leisler, the head of the Dutch 
party, who, in New York, hastened to proclaim William of Orange 
on his first accession to the throne of England, Bancroft says, “in 
assuming powers, Leisler rested chiefly for his support upon the 
less educated class of the Dutch, and English dissenters were not 
heartily his friends. The large Dutch landholders, many of the 
English merchants, the friends to the English church, the cabal 
that had grown up around the royal governors were his wary and 
unrelenting opponents. But his greatest weakness was in himself. 
Too restless to obey, and too passionate to command, as a Presby¬ 
terian, Leisler was averse to the church of England ; as a man of 
middling fortunes, to the aristocracy; while as a Dutchman 
and a Calvinist, he was an enthusiast for William of Orange. 
Destitute of equanimity, his failure was inevitable.”—3 Bancroft, 57. 

But the ill-bred vulgar are too apt to rely on temper, passion 
and waywardness, instead of equanimity and reason, and to indulge 
in clique partialities and animosities for the attainment of their 
ends. But this real equanimity, which can control any of the pas¬ 
sions of others, when at all controllable, is born of disciplined in¬ 
tellect and dominant moral faculties, free from the controlling bias 
of any of the desires, instincts and passions and cannot exist where 
there is no self-control. 

Note 22—Chapter VII. 

“ This (speaking freely and publicly ) was his (the Quaker’s) 
method of resisting tyranny. Algernon Sydney, who took money 
from Louis XIV., like Brutus, would have plunged a dagger into 
the heart of a tyrant: the Quaker, without a bribe, resisted tyranny 
by appeals to the monitor within the tyrant’s breast, and he labored 
incessantly 'to advance reform by enlightening the public con¬ 
science. Any other method of revolution he believed an impossi¬ 
bility. Government, such was his belief, will always be as the peo¬ 
ple are ; and a people imbued with love of liberty, create the irre¬ 
sistible necessity of a free government. He sought no revolution but 
that which followed as the consequence of the public intelligence. 
Such revolutions were inevitable. ‘Though men considered not, the 


286 


VIA M0RALIS VINCENDI. 


Lord rules and overrules in the kingdoms of men.’ Any other rev¬ 
olution would be transient. The Quaker submitted to the restora¬ 
tion of Charles II. as the best arrangement for the crisis;; confi¬ 
dent that time and truth would lead to a happier issue. The best 
frame in ill hands, can do nothing that is great and good. Gov¬ 
ernments, like clocks, go from the motion imparted to them ; they 
depend on men, rather than men on governments. Let men be 
good, the government can not be bad ; if it be ill, they will cure 
it.’ Even with absolute power, an Antonine or an Alfred could 
not make bricks without straw, or the sword do more than substi¬ 
tute one tyrant for another.—Bancroft’s Hist. U. S. 

Unless conscientiousness and a love of equal justice and right 
dominate the ruling masses of the people, even in a free govern¬ 
ment, the tyranny of class interests and special franchises and power 
will supercede equal rights and the dispensation of equal justice to 
all, and as to the feebler masses, the republic will become but a 
shadow or a name. 

Note 23. 

That the treason of Arnold was begotten, as other individ¬ 
ual or public wrongs and treasons are ushered into the world, 
through the pressure of debts incurred by this spirit of ostentation, 
is notorious, and there are no more prolific sources of wreck and 
dishonor in civilized communities. “ In Philadelphia,” says Mrs. 
Willard in her history of the Republic of America, “ Arnold lived 
in princely magnificence. He inhabited the house oLGovernor 
Penn, gave it a splendid furnishing, and it became a scene of high 
play, sumptuous banquets, and expensive balls. To support this 
pageantry, Arnold resorted to commerce and privateering. In 
these he was unfortunate, and his next resource was the public 
treasure, to which, as an officer of the government, he had means 
of access. He presented accounts unworthy of a general, Congress 
was indignant, and caused them to be investigated. The commis¬ 
sioners whom they appointed reduced them to one-half. Arnold 
stormed and appealed to Congress. A committee of its members 
re-investigated, and found his accounts worse than even the report 
of the commissioners had stated them. Arnold now wreaked his 
indignation by the most shameless invectives against Congress. 
The state of Pennsylvania took up the quarrel, accused him of 
peculation, and brought him before a court-martial. By this court 
he was sentenced to be reprimanded by Washington. From what 
other quarter could he obtain the money to support his extrava- 


APPENDIX. 


287 


gance since the last resource had failed ? The coffers of England 
might be opened to supply him. Treason bore with her a high 
price. He should also obtain revenge on the objects of his wrath : 
and for these motives he resolved to sell himself and his country.”— 
Willard’s Republic of America, 243-244. 

And Julius Caesar, by ostentatious prodigality in games to 
amuse and acquire the plaudits of the Roman populace, was mil¬ 
lions in debt before he attained the power and following which 
made him dangerous to the Republic. 

No man, except for very necessaries, or'for a business which 
he knows himself competent to conduct and has reasonable assur¬ 
ance of making profitable or compensatory, has any right to incur 
a debt; and one so refusing to incur debt is more honest and really 
more honorable in his lowliness than any one who, through debt, 
becomes the observed of all observers, and the idol of the ignorant, 
the vulgar or the mass of hero worshipers. 

Of the same evil tendency are the electioneering pageants and 
parades of our day, imposing and beautiful, with banners, mottoes 
and torches as some of them are, imitated by us from the arts of 
aristocracy abroad, but tending to exclude from elective offices hon¬ 
orable men, too poor in purse and too honest in purpose to emulate 
the rich in those vain and costly pageants, or to seek their alliance by 
base compliances. The Earl of Shaftesbury, having been displaced 
from the ministry under Charles II., “immediately,” says Bancroft, 
“universal agitation roused the spirit of the nation. Under the in¬ 
fluence of Shaftesbury’s genius, on Queen Elizabeth’s night, a vast 
procession, bearing devices and wax figures representing nuns and 
monks, bishops in copes and mitres, and also—it should be observed, 
for it proves how much the Presbyterians were courted—bishops 
in lawn, cardinals in red caps, and last of all, the Pope of Rome, 
side by side, in a litter with the devil, moved through the streets of 
London under the glare of thousands of flambeaux ; and in the 
presence of two hundred thousand spectators. ” Verily, the arts 
of demagogues, equally with other exhibitions of human character, 
repeat themselves in all ages ; and we have but substituted for the 
gladiatorial and other costly shows of Rome the pomp of proces¬ 
sions and torches, uniforms, mottoes and parades. 

Note 24. 

The needs of uncultured men compel a rude, and perhaps 
unstable industry, like that described by Bancroft, as existing un- 


288 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


der the French dominion in America : “Agriculture,” he says, 
“was but little encouraged either by the policy of the fur trader or 
the industry of the inhabitants. It was limited to a few patches of 
corn and wheat, which were cultivated in profound ignorance of 
the principles of good husbandry.” 

Note 25. 

And yet there is, as to material welfare, no higher benefactor 
than skilled and intelligent industry, even when it pursues its own 
advantage only. “What stupendous consequences,” says Lanman, 
“does American mechanical philosophy, the characterizing feature 
of the present age, exhibit throughout the country. The railroad, 
the canal, the steamboat, the thousand modes and powers by which 
machinery is propelled, how vastly has it augmented the sum of 
human strength and human happiness * * * Pouring its millions 
into the wilderness, it has sent forth, not serfs, but hardy, practical 
enterprising men, the founders of empires, who have finished the 
work of erecting states before the wolf and panther had fled from 
their dens * * * In a single day, it lives almost a century * .* * 
More powerful than Xerxes when he threw manacles into the Hel¬ 
lespont, it has chained the current of rivers by the dam, the mill- 
race and the water-wheel, and made them its slaves. It has 
almost nullified space by enabling us to rush across its surface like 
the wind, and prolong time by the speed with which we can accom¬ 
plish our ends. It has constructed railroads across the mountains ; 
and in the sublime language of another, “the backs of the Alle- 
ganies have bowed down like camels.”—Lanman’s History of 
Michigan, 233. 

And since Lanman’s days, man-made electricity illumines the 
night; it almost instantaneously transports human messages of 
business or of love, thousands of miles away ; and another inven¬ 
tion makes audible the feeble human voice, that naturally hardly 
reaches rods, many miles off from the speaker : and human ingenu¬ 
ity has wrought wonders seemingly miraculous but for the knowl¬ 
edge of the scientific principles on which they are based. The intel¬ 
ligent skilled industry, which operates such results, is to be honored, 
though its aims be self only ; nor is the unskilled labor which is its 
necessary coadjutor to be despised : they need only a lofty morality 
superadded to them to be really worthy of high honor. All do 
benevolently or by compulsion, a portion of God’s necessary work 
on earth, and, in so doing, must benefit others. Others obey the 
injunction to— 


APPENDIX. 


289 


“ So live 

That wheD the summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan, that goes 
To the mysterious realms, thou go not 
Like a galley slave scourged to his dungeon— 

But sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust 
Wrap the drapery of thy couch about thee 
And lie down to pleasant dreams.” 

Note 26. 

It is the glory of these states, and the United States, that 
among their first cares was the endorsement and organization of 
common schools and higher institutions of learning. The former 
are brought home to the people in all their neighborhoods ; but 
the latter, few and remote, are unfortunately practically inaccessi¬ 
ble to a great majbrity of our people, who have not means to sup¬ 
port their children away from home through the terms of study of 
the college or university, where morals are systematically taught. 
Can not such institutions be extended to county centres of five, ten 
or twenty thousand population, so as to make their advantages 
more widely available ? The state of New York stands abreast, at 
least, with the foremost states of the Union in its advantages 
through academic and collegiate institutions. Is not its wealth 
equal to placing it in advance of all other states in the number of 
and attendance upon such institutions, in the manner here sug¬ 
gested, or by making morals a branch of the common or high 
school education at least ? 


Note 27. 

The most indefatigable industry of man caqnot be wholly un¬ 
selfish ; for then it loses all the impelling and sustaining power of 
all the selfish instincts, desires and aspirations—an immense, ur¬ 
gent, ever-active power ; nor can it be wholly selfish, for that im¬ 
plies the domination of one or another or all the selfish instincts ; 
and the domination of any of them except perhaps those of the 
love of accumulation or lust of power, implies an industry made 
more or less inconstant and irregular by the pursuit and enjoyment 
of or dalliance with the objects of those instincts. Neither has the 
constitution of man in the past admitted, nor does it now admit of 
a disregard by society of the single selfish instinct of love of accum¬ 
ulation. Referring to the early days of colonization in Virginia, 
a historian says, “ Hitherto no right of property in land had been 

S 


290 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


established ; and it was computed that the united industry of the 
settlers did not accomplish as much labor in a week as might have 
been accomplished in a day if each individual had labored on his own 
account. To remedy this, Sir Thomas Dale divided a considerable 
portion of land into small lots of three acres, and granted one of 
them to each individual in full property, and he was allowed a cer¬ 
tain portion of time in the cultivation of it. Industry was excited 
by the hope of wealth ; and improvements of every kind took place. 
Assignments of fifty acres soon after were made ; and at last the 
plan of working in a common field was entirely abandoned.”—Wil¬ 
lard’s Rep. of America, 37. 

The indolence and apathy of the aborigines under a tribal 
ownership of land, is well known. Every instinct implanted by 
the Creator has its own wise purpose, office and power ; and no 
better results can attend, in the future, any disregard, extinction, 
enfeeblement or discouragement of either of them. The utter 
extinction of any one instinct or desire could be but an abasement 
of human energy. The world has already enough partly developed 
men and woq^en. 

Note 28 —Chapter VIII. 

A like identity of instinct, affection and faculty, and a like 
diversity in the degree or dominance of any faculty, constitutes the 
infinite variations of character and capacity in the individuals of 
the same race and also the typical variations of different races. 
The several possession of all these instincts implies an equal right 
to seek and hold their objects in every man who can rightly attain 
them. 

Note 29 —Chapter IX. 

Self-respect, or a high sense of honor bears the same poble 
fruit of word and deed among all races of men. When Reid of 
Pennsylvania was approached with tempting offers and bribes by 
the English, “I am not worth buying,” was the reply, “but such as 
I am the King of England can not buy me.” This self-respect, or 
right self-esteem, not only will not condescend to wrong, when 
united with a right conscience ; but will in no case, condescend to 
aught that is mean or base, even in pursuit of or to secure actual 
rights. With conscience in activity, it constitutes the most exalted 
of merely terrestrial characters. 

“ Of Canonchet, chief of the Narragansetts, the early friend 
of the English, roused at last to contend for his hunting grounds, 


APPENDIX. 


291 


defeated and a prisoner, it is related that his spirit did not droop 
under the disasters of his tribe. ‘ We will fight to the last man,’ 
said the gallant chieftain, ‘rather than become servants to the Eng¬ 
lish.’ Taken prisoner at last, near the Blackstone, a young man 
began to question him. ‘Child,’ replied he, ‘you do not under¬ 
stand war ; I will answer your chief.’ His life was offered him if 
he would procure a treaty of peace. He refused the offer with 
disdain. Condemned to death, he only answered, ‘ I like it well; 
I shall die before I speak anything unworthy of myself.’—2 Ban¬ 
croft’s Hist. U. S., 105-106. 

Note 30. 

The centuries of persecution of Christians by pagans, of all 
other faiths by Mahommedans, of the Waldenses, Albigenses, Hu¬ 
guenots, Lollards, Wickliffites and Anglican churchman by the Ro¬ 
man Catholics, and of the Covenanters by the Anglican church, and 
the intolerance which colonized Massachusetts with Puritans, Mary¬ 
land with Catholics, Charleston with Huguenots, Georgia with Lol¬ 
lards and Palatines, New Jersey with Covenanters, Pennsylvania 
with Quakers and Palatines, Connecticut with sectaries persecuted 
by Massachusetts, need only to be referred to. Neither conscience, 
nor the religious instinct, nor intellect, even in divine things, is a 
guide so infallible in man, as to warrant an attempt by any, to 
impose, under pains and penalties, his own creed upon dissenters ; 
and of miraculous inspiration, or any inspiration other than that 
ordinary inspiration that works by and through God-given faculty 
or powers, there has been no credible evidence since the Apostolic 
era. Of the persecution of the Covenanters under Charles II. and 
James II., in the name of the Anglican church, which was more 
political perhaps than religious, they having been parties and com¬ 
batants in the revolution that dethroned and beheaded the father 
of those monarchs, Bancroft says, “ This ( A. D. 1679-1685 ) is the 
era, at which New Jersey, till now chiefly colonized from New 
England, became the asylum of Scottish Presbyterians. Who has 
not heard of the ruthless cruelties by which the Stuarts attempted 
to plant Episcopacy in Scotland on the ruins of Calvinism, and 
extirpate the faith of the whole people ? To whom has the tale 
not been told of the defeat of Graham of Claverhouse at Loudon 
Hill, and the subsequent rout of the insurgent fanatics at Bothwell 
Bridge? Who has not heard of the Cameronians, hunted like 
beasts of prey and exhausted by sufferings and despair, refusing in 


292 


VIA M0RALIS VINCENDI. 


the face of the gallows to say ‘ God save the King,’ and charged 
even by their wives to die for the good old cause of the covenant ? 

‘ I am but twenty,’ said an innocent girl at her execution, ‘and they 
can accuse me of nothing but my judgment.’ The boot and the 
thumbikins could not extort confessions. The condemnation of 
Argyle displayed the prime nobility as ‘ the vilest of mankind ; ’ 
and wide-spread cruelty exhausted itself in devising punishments. 
Just after the grant of New Jersey, a proclamation, unparalleled 
since the days when Alva drove the Netherlands into independence, 
proscribed all who had ever communed with rebels, and put twen¬ 
ty thousand lives at the mercy of informers. ‘ It were better,’ said , 
Lauderdale, ‘ the country bore windle-straws and sand-larks than 
boor rebels to the King.’ After the insurrection of Monmouth, the 
sanguinary excesses of despotic revenge were revived, gibbets 
erected in villages to intimidate the people, and soldiers entrusted 
with the execution of the laws. Scarce a Presbyterian family in 
Scotland but was involved in pains and penalties ; the jails over¬ 
flowed, and their tenants were sold as slaves to the plantations.”— 
Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 412. 

This history has for us a double warning—the old lesson, 
“ that he that taketh the sword, shall perish by the sword,” and, 
the more modern one, that the strife of politics and the zeal of re¬ 
ligion united are doubly in danger of running into cruelty and ex¬ 
cess. Under the restoration, the political fears of the restored 
King and aristocracy, as the story shows, had a major part in ani¬ 
mating the persecutions than any zeal for the Anglican church : 
for it is morally impossible to conceive that a King like Charles 
II., sunk in sensuality and rioting amid his mistresses, could be 
animated really by any zeal for any church or any form of religion ! 

But pains, penalties and tortures may create hypocrites only. 
They can not make or change a real conviction or faith : and 
James II. lost his throne and became a fugitive upon the face of 
the earth. 

“ William Penn, founder of the imperial state that bears his 
name, had experienced persecution in his own person. It was at 
a period when religious toleration was scarcely known in the civil¬ 
ized world, that by the laws of Penn, it was declared that no per¬ 
son acknowledging one God and being peaceable in society should 
be molested for his opinions or his practices touching religious 
matters.”—Willard’s Republic of America, 74. 

“ The pettiness or sacrilege to which the persecutors could 


APPENDIX. 


29a 


descend, is best evinced in the treatment of Wyckliffe,” says Bari-' 
croft. “ A timely death could alone place him beyond persecu^ 
tion ; his bones were disinterred and burnt, and his ashes throw!? 
on the waters of the Avon. But his fame brightens as time ad¬ 
vances ; when America traces the lineage of her freedom, she 
acknowledges the benefactions of Wyckliffe.—2 Bancroft’s Hist. 
U. S. 

No real faith exists, except through freedom. One cannot 
believe for another : but the latter may or may not accept author¬ 
ity. It is not only a wrong, but a folly, to seek to coerce belief. 

Note 31 . 

Whether in private or in public affairs, the faith and doc¬ 
trine of thoughtful and conscientious men, are those expressed by 
Washington in his farewell address : “I hold the maxim no less 
applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is the best 
policy. I repeat it therefore, let those engagements be observed 
in their genuine sense.—Willard’s Republic of America, Appendix, 
p. xli. 

But men of infirm or dormant consciences are apt to regard 
strict integrity and sterling good faith as romantic follies or artful 
hypocrisy, and to find true wisdom in all the deep artifices of a 
shrewd tact and a cunning and acute intellect. And so our con¬ 
trolling moral powers and religious faculties influence or guide 
aright our beliefs, or some prejudice or other controlling instinct 
or passion perverts, distorts or debases them, for a time or perma¬ 
nently, except, perhaps, in the case of rare men of dominant intel¬ 
lect or high education. The latter only—the people of dominant 
intellect, conscience or high education—can, in general, be a law 
unto themselves, with any safety to themselves or others, or the 
men of dominant conscience and spirituality. To his abnormal 
training, to an excessive thirst for war and military glory, his gen¬ 
eral indolence otherwise, and his living under no dominion but the 
law of his own perverted passions, the aborigines owe their limited 
numbers before, and their decadence after, their contact with the 
white man. “ There can be no society,” says Bancroft, “without 
government. But among the Indian tribes on the soil of our re¬ 
public, there was not only no written law, there was no tradition¬ 
ary expression of law ; government rested on opinion and usage ; 
and the motives to the usage were never embodied’ in language; 
they gained utterance only in the fact, and power only from opinion. 


294 


VIA M0RALIS VINCENDI. 


No ancient legislator believed that human society could be main¬ 
tained with so little artifice. Unconscious of political principles, they 
remained under the influence of instincts. Their forms of govern¬ 
ment grew out of their passions and their wants, and were there¬ 
fore everywhere the same.—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 275. 

Note 32 . 

The best theories are worthless, and the most exact principles 
fail men in emergencies, unless a right practice make them habit¬ 
ual. Lanman said of the people of Michigan forty years ago, what 
is still true in most of the states : “ Although the colleges of the 

East have sent out a great number of men into Michigan, as well 
as the other Western states, literature is very far from being the 
characteristic of the people. They, in fact, seem to have little 
confidence in that theoretic knowledge, which men acquire from 
books ; and great confidence in that practical information, which is 
derived from the study of men and things.”—Lanman’s Hist. 
Mich., 298. For this state of things there is a three-fold reason— 
1 st, with many students, their learning is a mass of ill-digested 
material, conned by rote and little capable of any practical use, ex¬ 
cept logomachy and the ostentation of learning ; 2d, that much of 
the philosophical theories, they con, is false or frivolous ; and, 
when neither of these is true, often the old couplet is realized— 

“ Stars above a certain height 

Give us neither heat nor light! ” 

But it is a mistake to contemn either sound theory acquired 
from books or the practical information derived from the study of 
men and things : yet all theory and all knowledge, whether de¬ 
rived from books or original study, is a vanity and delusion, unless 
it is practical and practiced. The really wise diligently employ 
every means of information open to them ; and, in the education 
of their children, add to the tuition of the schools, the lessons of 
their own experience. And all knowledge of a practical and use¬ 
ful character, derived from books, embodying, as it generally does, 
the experience of generations and the best thoughts of their sages, 
must ordinarily be more comprehensive, and therefore more reli¬ 
able, than the isolated studies or conclusions of a single individual 
or a generation. Even the grandest discoveries of the day are but 
the consummation of antecedent studies ; applications of princi¬ 
ples and properties of things previously known, and their practical 
adaptation to new and wonderful uses. Right theory must and 


APPENDIX. 295 

does precede right practice, that is not fortuitous only. No hu¬ 
man being can afford to belittle or contemn book learning. 

Note 33 . 

The temptations of the rich and great, other than those to 
luxury, licentiousness and ostentation, are illustrated in the case of 
the son of George Calvert, earl of Baltimore, a Roman Catholic 
nobleman, founder and proprietary of Maryland. “ Who shall say, 
that the many are fickle, that the chief is firm ? ” inquires Bancroft. 
“To recover the inheritance of authority, Benedict, the son of the 
proprietary, renounced the Catholic church for that of England ; 
the persecution never crushed the faith of the humble colonists.”— 
3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 33. 

But the proprietary’s son was biased by the ambition of lord- 
ship over a vast domain, and the hope of wealth and grandeur, and 
perhaps the means of luxury and ostentation therefrom. The hum¬ 
ble colonists of Maryland were happily under the influence of no 
such potential temptation. The motives of the great and the little, 
and their seductions, are very different ; and the greater one be¬ 
comes in wealth and dominion, the stronger he must grow in re¬ 
sistance to such allurements as specially await the great, or he 
will be easily and constantly overcome or seduced by such as 
assail him, or fall under the illusions to which they give birth. The 
lapse from faith or virtue, or from a creed, that is not from a new 
light or an intentional apostacy, is often from expediency, or a 
coercion of circumstances or self-deceit : and any one of our 
dominant instincts may beget that illusion. What Bancroft says 
of Cromwell has been true of many others not so great, nor actors 
in so grand an arena. “ Was he sincere or was he only a hypocrite ? 
It is difficult to disbelieve that his mind was honestly imbued with 
the principles of Puritan reforms ; but the man, whose ruling mo¬ 
tive is ambition, soon gains the mastery over his own convictions, 
and values and employs ideas only as instruments to his advance¬ 
ment. Self-love easily dupes conscience ; and Cromwell may 
have easily believed himself faithful to the interests of England. 
All great men are inclined to Fatalism ; for their success is a mys¬ 
tery to themselves ; and it was not entirely with hypocrisy, that 
Cromwell, to the last, professed himself the servant of providence.” 
—2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S. 

Every ruling instinct, in the great or little, has a like power, un¬ 
less that ruler have a really enlightened conscience. That instinct, 


296 


VIA MORALIS YINCENDI. 


of all others, is least liable to mischievous perversions and delu¬ 
sions in behalf of self, and injurious to others, except when in uni¬ 
son with the religious faculties it conceives it to be a duty to force 
a creed upon others for their eternal salvation ! 

Note 34 . 

The want of a just economy in youth and later life is one of 
the origins of much of the poverty of the poor. The improvidence 
of mariners is so notorious, although there are honorable exceptions, 
that the laws of every country assume special wardship over them. 
Of a like character were the coureurs des bois , as described by 
Bancroft. “The active agents of the fur trade were the coureurs 
des bois —the pilots of the lakes. Sweeping up in their canoes 
through the upper lakes, encamping with the Indians in the solitude 
of the forests, they returned to the posts, which stood like light¬ 
houses of civilization on the borders of the wilderness, like sailors 
from the ocean, to whom they were not dissimilar in character. 
They were lavish of their money in dress and licentiousness. They 
ate, drank and played all away, as long as their goods held out ; 
and, when these were gone, they sold their embroidery, their lace 
and clothes ; and they were then forced to go on another voyage 
for subsistence.”—Lanman’s Hist. Mich., 63-64. 

A like improvidence and indolence, not only kept the Amer¬ 
ican Indian poor, but suffering and wretched, in winter especially. 
“During the mild season,” says Bancroft, “there may have been 
little suffering. But thought was wanting ; the stores collected by 
the industry of the women were squandered in festivities. Festi¬ 
vals too were common, at some of which it was the rule to eat 
everything that was offered, and the indulgence of appetite sur¬ 
passed belief. But what could be more miserable than the tribes 
of the, North and Northwest in the depths of winter—suffer¬ 
ing from an annual famine, driven by the intense cold to sit 
indolently in the smoke round the fire in the cabin, and to fast for 
days together, and then again, compelled by faintness to reel into 
the woods and gather moss or bark for a thin decoction, that might 
at least relieve the extremity of hunger. Famine gives a terrible 
energy to the brutal part of our nature. A shipwreck will make 
cannibals of civilized men ; a siege changes the refinements of 
urbanity into excesses at which humanity shudders ; a retreating 
army abandons its wounded. The hunting tribes have the affec¬ 
tions of men; but among them also extremity of want pro- 


APPENDIX. 


297 


duces like results. The aged and infirm meet with little tender¬ 
ness ; the hunters, as they roam the wilderness, desert their old 
men ; if provisions fail, the feeble drop down and are lost, or life 
is shortened by a blow. The fate of the desperately ill was equally 
sad. * * * Those who lingered with them ( diseases), espec¬ 

ially the aged, were sometimes neglected, and sometimes put to 
death.”—Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 272-273. 

Nothing better can be expected from the ignorant, the self- 
indulgent and improvident in civilized life, save from the humaniz¬ 
ing influences of religious faith. And even these influences can 
not cure the ills of waste or improvidence. How many are there, 
even when not in want of common necessaries, who really perish, in 
the midst of civilization, from the want of a diet and nutrition, or 
raiment specially suited to their ailments, conditions and needs. 
Hospitality is one of the noblest virtues of the Indian, as well as of 
patriarchal and civilized life. But even it, if indulged in to the sac¬ 
rifice of duty to one’s self or family, becomes the vice of improvi¬ 
dence, even when it does not conduct to conditions and cruelties, 
like those of the Indians : and every other form of profusion is 
equally criminal. Are not the self-indulgent, improvident and 
licentious classes the savages of civilized communites ? Only the 
operations of a public sentiment of duty, born of enlightened con¬ 
sciences and religious ordinances, make rare or occasional the same 
neglect of the weak, the aged and the sick by the savage of civili¬ 
zation, that occurred among the Indians. 

Note 35. 

How many fathers, relatives, friends have been ruined by aid¬ 
ing beyond their means, and to their own involvement in pecuni¬ 
ary distress, a son or other aspiring, hopeful, smart-appearing, 
but really incapable, inexperienced, conceited, unskilled or reckless 
dear one or friend ? 

Note 36. 

“ A few weeks before his death, William Penn exhorted Friends 
in America, to be the light of the world, the salt to preserve earth 
from corruption. ‘ Covetousness,’ he adds, ‘ is idolatry ; ’ and he 
bids them beware of that idol, for which so many lose morality and 
humanity.”—2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 404. 

And among those who do not worship images, the work of 
men’s hands nor the human instincts personified, as Venus, Cupid, 


298 


VIA M0RALIS VINCENDI. 


etc., there are five principal idolatries—self, the love of wealth, the 
pursuit of fashion or of fame, the lust of dominion or of power, and 
sexual lusts. Where these or any other instincts become supreme 
over conscience and the love of God and duty to Him and His 
creatures, in any heart, there is an idolater, even though he be a 
professor under the Christian or Jewish dispensation or ministra¬ 
tions. 

Note 37. 

No one can with certainty practice this temperance and mod¬ 
eration in all things, without being early trained to self-denial and 
self-control. The denial that is of the parents’ compulsion does 
not train either ; that which the child is induced voluntarily to 
practice does train self-command : and here churches which teach 
the need of stated fasts or other form of self-denial, procure ines¬ 
timable benefits to their members who practice according to their 
teaching. 

Bancroft describes the early missionaries to the Indians, as 
winning eternal glory by their heroic self-denials—“ for to what 
inclemencies from nature and from man was he not exposed ? He 
defies the severity of the climate, wading through water or through 
snows without the comforts of a fire ; having no bread but pounded 
maize, and often no food but the unwholesome moss from the 
rocks ; laboring incessantly ; exposed to live, as it were, without 
nourishment, to sleep without a resting place, to travel far, and 
always incurring perils—to carry his life in his hands, or rather 
daily, and oftener than every day, to hold it up as a target, ex¬ 
pecting captivity, death, from the tomahawk, tortures, fire.”—3 
Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 153. 

Even the untutored savage had within his own breast an in¬ 
centive to this self-denial. “To secure success in the chase by 
appeasing the tutelary spirits of the animals he pursued, severe fasts 
were kept: and happy was he to whom they appeared in his dreams, 
for it was a sure augury of abundant returns. The warrior, prepar¬ 
ing for an expedition, often sought the favor of the god of battle, by 
separating himself from women, and mortifying his body by contin¬ 
ual penance. The security of female captives, was, in part, the con¬ 
sequence of the vows of chastity, by which the warrior was bound 
till after his return. The Indian, detesting restraint, was perpet¬ 
ually imposing on himself extreme hardships, that by penance and 
suffering he might atone for his offences, and by acts of self-denial 
might win for himself the powerful favor of the invisible world. 


APPENDIX. 


299 


* * * On approaching majority, the young Chippewa, anxious 

to behold God, blackens his face with charcoal, and, building a 
lodge of cedar boughs, it may be on the summit of a hill, there be¬ 
gins his fast in solitude. The fast endures, perhaps ten days, till, 
excited by the severest irritations of thirst, watchfulness and famine, 
he beholds a vision of God, and knows it to be his guardian spirit.” 
3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 290-291. 

All these superstitious self-denials are but perversions of the 
constant daily duty of self-denial and self-control required to live 
according to ability and within our means. They require less 
thought and care, and are far more easy ; and too often are fol¬ 
lowed and compensated by corresponding excesses. And the all 
prevailing idea of atonement by suffering, points to the one real 
atonement once made for the sins of all mankind. 

Note 38—Chapter X. 

“ Locke, who was never married, declares marriage an affair 
of the senses,” (referring to Locke’s Essays, Book II, ch. XXI, p. 
34,) says Bancroft : but Locke really traces it to an instinct. “ Penn 
reverenced woman,” he says, “as the object of fervent, inward af¬ 
fection, made, not for lust, but for love.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. 
S., 379-380. Both are doubtless correct. Locke, as to the lower 
class of contracts of this character, attended neither by real es¬ 
teem nor hallowing sense of duty ; Penn, as to the higher and 
more ideal. But however originally contracted, if both contract¬ 
ing parties fulfill their mutual duties, and strive to lift the associa¬ 
tion up into the ideal realms of duty, it cannot fail to be elevated 
into a holy, constant bond of blissful union of the higher type ; 
otherwise the lower type will soon be attended by harshness, dis¬ 
respect, domineering waywardness, quarrels and perhaps actual 
conflicts, and may or perhaps must end in satiety, indifference, dis¬ 
content, alienation, infidelity, disgust and divorce. 

Note 39. 

The abuses of this instinct or its vices are chiefly, but not 
wholly confined to unwed, homeless or wandering, brutal and irrelig¬ 
ious people.—So, the immorality of sailors on the ocean is noto¬ 
rious, and Lanman says of the coureurs des bois , that “ they were 
affable, gay and licentious,” and of the merchants at the trading 
posts, that “ they frequently fostered a large number of half-breed 
children.”—Lanman’s Hist. Mich., 54. And of the morals of Can- 


300 


VIA MORA LIS VINCENDI. 


ada in the early days of a fluctuating, unsettled population, he 
says that “ they were not improved by the importation of about 
three hundred women of licentious character, who were sent out by 
the French government” (Id. 9); and, even of the females con¬ 
nected with the church “that their character was too generally 
impure, and that of most of the men was openly profligate.” (Id. 
11.) Nor are the rich and great exempt from this scandal of illicit 
amours. “ The tall and swarthy grandson of Henry IV. of France,” 
says Bancroft, referring to Charles II. of England, “was naturally 
possessed of a disposition, which, had he preserved purity of morals, 
had made him one of the most amiable of men. It was his mis¬ 
fortune, in very early life, to have become thoroughly debauched 
in mind and heart ; and adversity, usually the rugged nurse of 
virtue, made the selfish libertine but the more reckless in his proflig¬ 
acy. He did not merely indulge his passions ; his neck bowed to 
the yoke of lewdness. He was attached to women, not from love 
—for he had no jealousy, and was regardless of infidelities, nor en¬ 
tirely from debauch, but from the pleasure of living near them and 
sauntering in their company. His delight, such is the record of 
the royalist Evelyn, was in concubines and cattle of that sort; and 
up to the last week of his life, he spent his time in dissoluteness, 
toying with his mistresses, and listening to love-songs. If decision 
ever broke through his abject vices, it was but a momentary flash 
a life of pleasure sapped his moral courage, and left him imbecile, 
fit only to be the tool of ministers and the dupe of mistresses.”—<- 
Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 48-49. 

Besides these vices of the amorous instinct, there are other 
and more atrocious depths of unnatural perversion and degrada¬ 
tion, utterly bestial, into which the deepest brutality only lapses.. 
And, even in wedded life, there may be excesses, ruinous to health,, 
mind and vigor of the feebler party, or to both ; and especially to* 
the female, by such frequent child-births and continuous lactation, 
nursing and wakefulness, as to sap the constitution and con¬ 
duct to emaciation, decline, permanent lassitude, exhaustion and 
an untimely grave. The animals, by instinct, have their remote 
regular seasons : but mankind are lawless, even when decent in their 
indulgence ; yet men and women require chastity, moderation and 
periods of recuperation, even in married life that promotes the pur¬ 
poses of God, in populating the earth with its earthly lords. Else¬ 
where chastity requires a total control and abnegation of the sexual 
instinct, until the man or the woman can rightly and prudently assume 


APPENDIX. 


301 


its duties, offices and burdens ; and there is no more ready and ex¬ 
alted mode of disciplining, either to negative self-denial, and self- 
control than a steady adherence to entire chastity, free from all the 
perversions sometimes induced by a denial of its normal indulgence. 
Self-abuse and bestiality do not preserve chastity : and the best safe¬ 
guard against either is the regulated association of respectable males 
and females, and the young in the presence and society of their 
elders and in their families. This is never a matter of indifference. 

Note 40. 

A licentious life before marriage on the part of either, neces¬ 
sarily impairs, if it does not destroy all idealism of this instinct, 
and lowers confidence in sexual purity, and is the foster-mother of 
jealousy or of infidelities after marriage. But he or she, who weds 
a person known to be tainted previously or debased, has no right 
to be jealous of like misconduct afterward. They who take fire 
into their bosom must expect to be burned. But even in marriage 
excess depraves and breeds either a satiety or an insatiable mania 
conducing to infidelity, even when it produces no other bad effect. 
Chastity before marriage and temperance within and after it, are 
the indispensible conditions of that perfect happiness which mar¬ 
riage is capable of ; and where one or the other party has been, in 
any degree sensualized by actual unchastity or by unnatural per¬ 
versions of the instinct, or by excess after marriage, its full con¬ 
tentment and felicity need not be expected, and will be hoped for 
in vain. Seen, or unseen by its victim, every violation of the law 
of chastity has its own natural penalties that sooner or later over¬ 
take the transgressor—not infrequently in the form of the infelici¬ 
ties of married life. 

Note 41. 

William Penn’s remedy of work-houses is the only real reme¬ 
dy, if any there be, for imbeciles, incapables, confirmed idlers, 
vagrants and criminals. Describing the primary organization of 
Pennsylvania under the guidance of Penn, and by the delibera¬ 
tions of the representatives of the settlers, Bancroft says, “Every 
prison for convicts was made a work-house. There were neither 
poor rates nor tithes.”—2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 387. 

And there are none but the very aged or the very sick, who 
are not able, under proper supervision, persuasion or coercion, in 
some way, to earn a living. 


302 


VTA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


Note 42. 

It should be remembered that the pride or wrath of the most 
imbecile, unless he or she be a poltroon, can flash into hasty anger, 
combativeness, abuse and injuries. The wise only can act and 
speak wisely. And if any one acquire a reputation for courage by 
such mistaken conduct, it is so acquired at the cost of any true 
wisdom and any reputation for it. The law of retaliation may be 
most congenial to wrathful, combative, revengeful spirits : but it is 
the law of unintellectual and savage life, not the primary law of 
intellectual and civilized conditions of being, which has learned 
from the experience of centuries its terrible mistakes, barbarities 
and feuds. “Arrests and prisons, lawyers and sheriffs,” says Ban¬ 
croft in his description of savage conditions of life on this conti¬ 
nent, “ were unknown. Each man was his own protector ; and, as 
there was no public justice, each man issued to himself his letters of 
reprisal, and became his own avenger.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 
237 - 

But the insane war of bitter and sarcastic words is but the 
mocking substitute for, or a certain prelude to vengeful and retalia¬ 
tory acts ; and the results of the latter in savage life—not very differ¬ 
ent from like results in civilized communities of revengeful peoples— 
are thus depicted by the historian: “In case of death by violence, 
the departed shade could not rest till appeased by a retaliation. 
His kindred would go a thousand miles for the purpose of revenge, 
over hills and mountains, through large cane swamps full of grape¬ 
vines and briers, over large lakes, rapid rivers and deep creeks ; 
and all the way endangered by poisonous snakes, exposed to the 
extremities of heat and cold, to hunger and thirst. And blood being 
once shed, the reciprocity of attacks involved family in mortal strife 
against family, tribe against tribe, often contending from generation 
to generation.”—3 Bancroft, 275-276. A like state of things pre¬ 
vailed in the early European and middle ages, and wherever the Code 
Duello prevailed. And, in civilized life, disputes, contentions, disa¬ 
greements and litigations in one family, too often involve kindred, 
families and whole neighborhoods ; and disturb the peace of commu¬ 
nities. 

Note 43—Chapter XI. 

Speaking of the emigration of the Covenanters or Scotch Pres¬ 
byterians, in whom a long persecution had quickened a love of liber¬ 
ty, Bancroft asks : “ Is it strange that many Scotch Presbyterians of 


APPENDIX. 


303 


virtue, education and courage, blending a love of popular liberty 
with religious enthusiasm, came to East New Jersey in such num¬ 
bers as to give to the rising commonwealth a character which a 
century and a half has not effaced ?—2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 414. 

Speaking of the colonization and character of the colonists of 
New York under the Dutch, the same historian says : “ The perse¬ 
cuted of every creed and clime were invited to the colony. When 
the Protestant churches of New Rochelle were razed, the Calvinists 
of that city were gladly admitted ; and the French Protestants 
came in such numbers, that the public documents were sometimes 
issued in French, as well as in Dutch and English. Troops of or¬ 
phans were sometimes shipped for the milder destinies of the New 
World ; a free passage was offered to mechanics, for population 
was known to be the bulwark of every state. The government of 
New Netherlands had formed just ideas of the fit material for 
building a commonwealth ; they desired farmers and laborers, for¬ 
eigners and exiles, and men inured to toil and penury.”—3 Ban¬ 
croft’s Hist. U. S., 302. And New York is to-day, the greatest 
industrial state of the Union. “The large emigration from Con¬ 
necticut grafted on New Netherlands the Puritan idea of popular 
freedom. There were so many English at Manhattan as to require 
an English secretary, preachers who could speak in English as 
well as in Dutch, and a publication of civil ordinances in English. 
Whole towns had been settled by New England men, who, having 
come to America to serve God with a pure conscience, and desir¬ 
ing to provide for the outward comfort and soul’s welfare of their 
posterities, planted New England liberties in a congregational way, 
with the consent and under the jurisdiction of the Dutch. Their 
presence and their activity foretold a revolution.”—3 Bancroft’s 
Hist. U. S., 304. 

Anatomists, physiologists, psychologists and historians, at the 
present age, all accept and recognize the influence of heredity, mod¬ 
ified by association and circumstances, on the physiological and 
psychical character of man’s generations. They confirm and es¬ 
tablish the inspired declaration : “ I will visit the sins of the fathers 
upon the children of them that hate me, and show mercy unto 
thousands in them that love me and keep my commandments.” In 
the preceding extracts, references are given to the doctrine of the 
transmission of hereditary characteristics. But besides this reward 
and penalty consequent on the inevitable law of God, there is ordi¬ 
narily a further sequence imposed by the will of our fellow beings. 


304 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


“ Arnold received from the British ten thousand pounds, and the 
rank of a Brigadier General. For this he bartered his honor, his 
peace and his fame—changing the high esteem of the public into 
general detestation. The English, although they stooped to pur¬ 
chase the treason, could not but despise the traitor. Even his in¬ 
nocent children could not defend their little rights among their 
playmates ; but the finger of scorn was pointed at them, and they 
were hissed with ‘ traitor,’ ‘ traitor.' Perhaps could Arnold have 
known the insults to which his conduct would have exposed his 
children, he would have paused before it was too late, in his career 
of degeneracy, and the same reflection may save some future father, 
who is tempted to a deed of dishonor.”—Willard’s Republic of 
America, 267 and note. Nor can any father or mother foresee to 
what extent the sense of hereditary shame or dishonor may pervert 
or debase the entire course of the child’s life and his every aspira¬ 
tion. 

With this doctrine of heredity true, the heads of every family 
by their own character, life and deeds, have it in their power to 
modify for better or worse, the character of their children, and can 
from generation to generation enoble and exalt it, their influence 
for good ot ill being antecedent to, concurrent with and subse¬ 
quent to the children’s birth ; and they may so make easier for 
themselves, their after training in all that is capable, gentle and 
exalted ; and they owe this primary duty to all the helpless offspring 
they otherwise bring into the trials, temptations, debasements and 
miseries of life. 


Note 44—Chapter XIY. 

The business theory of the Quaker—as to dealings with far¬ 
mers—which it may be feared not all Quakers practice anywhere, 
for few but the the agriculturist or other producer can know the 
actual cost of his commodities—is certainly applicable to the em¬ 
ployee, the value of whose work in producing the employer’s profits 
every of them can ascertain, if he will. “ Seeking wisdom, and not 
the philosopher’s stone, to him the love of money for money’s sake, 
was the basest of passions, and the rage of indefinite accumulation 
was oppression to the poor, compelling those who have little to 
drudge like slaves. That the sweat and tedious labor of the hus¬ 
bandman, early and late, cold and hot, wet and dry, should be con¬ 
verted into the pleasure, ease and pastime of a small number of 
men, that the cart, the plough, the thresh should be in immoderate 


APPENDIX. 


305 


severity laid upon nineteen parts of the land to feed the appetites 
of the twentieth, is far from the appointment of the great Governor 
of the world. It is best the people be neither rich nor poor ; for 
riches bring luxury, and luxury tyranny.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 
345-346. 

But since Penn’s day, employees have united, to enforce a de¬ 
gree, at least, of justice, and ordinarily they have succeeded in its 
enforcement. The farmers too could, but they will not unite to 
achieve a like result, although many of them, either through lack 
of skill, or through unremunerative toils, encumber and lose or are 
in the process of losing their farms. But it seems to have been al¬ 
ways, and probably will continue to be the law of the world, that 
superior skill, capacity, energy, endurance and indefatigability, 
which exist only by force of superior early toils, constancy, econo¬ 
my, self-denial, self-control and sturdy self-discipline, should attain 
a superior recompense. Yet this just law may be carried too far 
and be perverted into an instrument of actual oppression—an un¬ 
questionable wrong. But it is certainly not unjust nor oppressive 
for the employer to exact for himself, in addition to the highest wages 
which he pays to any employee, the interest on and the premium for 
the insurance of his capital invested, and a moderate percentage for 
the risks of business, depreciations of property and other inevitable 
losses of business—although to a thoroughly capable and calculat¬ 
ing manager, there is little or no risk in fact. Without such com¬ 
pensations, capital would seek investments other than those which 
give employment to the needy, or any business attended with risk 
If skilled farmers do not realize a reasonable compensation for 
their skill, experience, toil and capital, a system of central agencies 
throughout each state and county to sell at fairly remunerative 
prices, to be adjusted by an executive committee of farmers, on like 
principles as the merchant and manufacturer adjust theirs, and to 
hold for their realization, would soon enable them to secure a just 
'remuneration : for people must and will have their products, which 
generally are among the necessaries of life : but any combination 
for undue exactions must fail by reason of the perishable nature of 
many of their commodities and foreign competition, as wheat from 
the Mediterranean and potatoes from Ireland have already been im¬ 
ported in times of inordinately high prices. There can be no pro¬ 
tection nor immunity for the slovenly, tardy; or unskilled agricultur¬ 
ist. 


T 


306 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


Note 45 . 

Sentiment and convictions or principles of duty, are alike 
valueless, unless they lead to correspondent action : and they are 
alike and only virtuous when they prompt constancy in their ap¬ 
propriate. right activites and toils. Not knowledge and acquire¬ 
ments, theory or sentiment, but Seeds, constitute the virtuous be¬ 
ing. Mere sentiment is liable to be less reliable and constant than 
fixed principles and habits, yet, in action it is equally merito¬ 
rious. Writing of Oglethorpe, the founder of the state of Georgia, 
Bancroft says : “ To meet the complaints of the disaffected, Ogle¬ 
thorpe, after a year of tranquility, sailed for England, never again 
to behold the colony, with which the disinterested toils of ten 
years had identified his fame. For the welfare of Georgia, he had 
renounced ease and the enjoyment of fortune, to scorn danger and 
fare much harder than any of the people settled there. Yet his 
virtues were the result of sentiment, not of reflection, and were 
colored by the prejudices of his nation, the hatred of Papists, the 
aversion to Spain. But the gentleness of his nature appeared in 
all his action; he was merciful to the prisoner ; a father to the 
emigrant; the unswerving friend of Wesley ; the constant benefac¬ 
tor of the Moravians ; honestly zealous for the conversion of the 
Indians, invoking for the negro the panoply of the gospel. His 
heart throbbed warmly for all around him ; he lived to relieve the 
indigent, to soothe the mourner ; and his name became known as an¬ 
other expression for vast benevolence of soul. Of an honorable 
lineage, from boyhood devoted to the profession of arms, by hered¬ 
itary attachment and by personal character a friend to legitimacy, 
he was for a commercial age the representative of that chivalry 
which knew neither fear nor reproach, and felt a stain on honor 
like a wound. There are men filled with the sentiment of human¬ 
ity, yet having a predilection for hierarchical forms—revering the in¬ 
stitutions of aristocracy with a genuine faith in them, willing to 
protect the humble, rather than to surrender power and establish 
equality. Such was Oglethorpe. Loyal and brave, choleric yet 
merciful; versed in elegant letters ; affable even to talkativeness ; 
slightly boastful and tinged with vanity—he was ever ready to 
shed blood rather than brook an insult, and yet more ready to ex¬ 
pose life for those who looked to him for defence. A monarchist 
in the state, friendly to the church, he seemed, even in youth, like 
one who had survived his times, like the relic of a former century 
and a more chivalrous age—illustrating to the modern world of 


APPENDIX. 30T 

business what a crowd of virtues could cluster around the heart 
of a cavalier.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 446-447. 

But the virtue that is based in conviction and stable principle 
established by reflection, added to a virtuous disposition must be 
more stable, consistent and reliable than that of disposition or im¬ 
pulse only. 

Note 46. 

The homely adage, “Practice makes perfect,” may be deemed 
beneath the dignity of a philosophical discussion : but it embodies 
in three short words the sine qua non, not only of perfection in the 
arts, but any perfection in moral conduct or real religious worship ; 
and it is so easily remembered, that it deserves to be indelibly im¬ 
pressed upon the tablets of the soul. One may as well expect to 
be a good arithmetician, ghemist, artist or philosopher by study or 
tuition only in the rules of art, as to become moral, virtuous or re¬ 
ligious by merely acquiring, comprehending and remembering the 
just rules or right theory of morals or religion. Every one must 
add to the best intellectual conceptions, such repeated and con¬ 
stant practice as shall make right thought and right doing sponta¬ 
neous or habitual; and to insure this result, early youth is the best 
period of incipient practice : and the practice that is not then begun 
will not be adopted at all, or only fitfully and irregularly. “ Remem¬ 
ber thy Creator in the days of thy youth”—to learn and obey His 
wise and beneficent laws, is, for the moralist and Christian alike, the 
most vital of all injunctions. 

Note 47—Chapter XY. 

“ The Indians of our republic,” says Bancroft, “ had no calen¬ 
dar of their own ; their languages have no word for year, and they 
reckon time by the return of snow, or the springing of the flowers ; 
their months are named from that which the earth produces in 
them ; and their almanac is kept in the sky by the birds, whose 
flight announces the progress of the yeatr.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. 
S., 271. 

Note 48—Chapter XYII. 

The example furnished in the history of the Long Parliament 
of England, as well as in that of Cromwell, stands in modern times 
as a perpetual admonition of the despotism which grows from the 
substantial unification of these triple powers. “ The contest was 
between a permanent Parliament and an arbitrary king. The peo- 


308 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


pie had no mode of intervention, except by serving in the armies, 
they could not come forward as mediators or masters. The Par¬ 
liament was become a body, of which its duration depended on its 
own will, (so made by its own usurping act) unchecked by a su¬ 
preme executive, or by an independent co-ordinate branch of leg¬ 
islation ; and therefore, of necessity, a multitudinous despot, un¬ 
balanced and irresponsible ; levying taxes, enlisting soldiers, com¬ 
manding the navy and the army, enacting laws, and changing at its 
will the forms of the English constitution. The issue was certain. 
Every representative body is swayed by the interests of its con¬ 
stituents, the interests of its own assembly, and the personal inter¬ 
ests of its respective members ; and never was the successive predom¬ 
inance of each of these made more clear than in the Long Parlia¬ 
ment. * * * Nothing could check the progress of degeneracy 

and corruption ; the example, the ability and the conscientious 
purity of Henry Vane were unavailing. Had the life of Hampden 
been spared, he could not have changed the laws of nature, and 
the principles of human action. The majority in Parliament was 
become the despot of England. 

Note 55. 

“ Resist the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however 
specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect in 
the forms of the constitution, alterations which will impair the en¬ 
ergy of the system, and thus to undermine what can not be directly 
overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, re¬ 
member that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true 
character of governments as of other human institutions ; that ex¬ 
perience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency 
of the existing constitution of a country ; that facility in changes, 
upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to per¬ 
petual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion.” 
Willard’s Rep. of Am., ap. xxxvn. 

Note 49. 

The fathers of the republic were no visionary levellers nor 
dreamers in the absolute equality of the conditions of men—the 
idle, the dissolute and the reckless, with the prudent, the virtuous 
and the indefatigable. The true equality of man was declared 
alike in the first resolution of the bill of rights adopted by the first 
Continental Congress of 1774—“ Resolved, 1st, That they are en- 


APPENDIX. 


309 


titled to life, liberty and property, and they have never ceded to 
any sovereign whatsoever a right to dispose of either without their 
consent.” (Willard’s Rep. of Am., ap. x.)—and was re-iterated in th£ 
Declaration of Independence, adopted on the Fourth of July, 177 6 f 
“ We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created 
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain in¬ 
alienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness ; that to secure these rights governments are insti¬ 
tuted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of 
the governed.”—Willard’s Rep. of Am., ap. xm. 

Note 50. 

Washington in his farewell address—the last invaluable legacy 
of the Father of his Country to the people whom his genius had 
conducted to freedom—says of the government under the consti¬ 
tution : “ This government, the offspring of our own choice, unin¬ 
fluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature 
deliberation, completely free in its principles ; in the distribution 
of its powers uniting security with energy, and containing within 
itself, a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your 
confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance 
with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by 
the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our politi¬ 
cal system is, the right of the people to make and to alter their 
constitution of government : but the constitution, which at any 
time exists, until changed by an explicit and authentic act of the 
whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of 
the power and right of the people to establish government presup¬ 
poses the duty of every individual to obey the established govern¬ 
ment. All obstructions to the execution of the law, all combina¬ 
tions and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the 
real design to direct, control, counteract or awe the regular delib¬ 
eration and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of 
this fundamental principle, and of fatal tenddicy.”—Willard’s Rep. 
of Am., ap. xxxvi-xxxvii. See Note 55. 

Note 51. 

The warning of Washington against the distorted vehemence 
of party spirit, in free governments especially, was prophetic and 
forever memorable—“ft serves always to distract the public coun¬ 
cils, and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the com- 


310 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


munity with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms ; kindles the 
animosity of one part against another, foments occasional riot and 
insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corrup¬ 
tion, which find a facilitated access to the government itself, through 
the channels of party passions.”—Willard’s Rep. of Am., ap. 

XXXVIII. 

Note 52. 

There are monuments or memorials of the decadence of em¬ 
pires and of art, and annihilation or expulsion of peoples, even in 
this new world. “ After all,” says Lanman, “ it must be granted 
that circumstances furnish a foundation for the belief that a race 
of men have lived in this country previous to the voyages of Jacques 
Cartier, who were much further advanced in civilization than the 
present race of Indians. Whatever may be the opinion of men res¬ 
pecting the origin of those remains, it is well known that fortifica¬ 
tions have been discovered, many of which are constructed on exact 
principles of mathematical science ; and specimens of art are also 
exhumed, which have been made with materials not now used by 
the savages; and that earthern images of Chinese form, vases, 
crucibles, bowls, bracelets, implements of unknown use, are found 
buried in the earth, throughout a great part of the west, particularly 
in the states of Ohio, Kentucky and along the banks of the Miss¬ 
issippi. Vegetable remains of plants whose species are now extinct, 
are also excavated below the surface of the soil.”—Lanman’s Hist. 
Mich., 257-259. 

Note 53 —Chapter XVIII. 

Of Clarke, the persevering and disinterested envoy of Rhode 
Island to Great Britain, Bancroft relates that he, “ during a twelve 
year’s mission, had sustained himself by his own exertions and a 
mortgage on his estate ; whose whole life was a continued exer¬ 
cise of benevolence, and at his death bequeathed all his posses¬ 
sions for the relief of the needy and the education of the young. 
Others have sought office to advance their possessions ; he, like 
Roger Williams, parted with his little means for the public good. 
He had powerful enemies in Massachusetts, and left a name with¬ 
out a spot.”—2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 64-65. 

Note 54. 

The continuous friendly relations held by Penn and his Quaker 
colony with the Indians manifests the possibility of overcoming evil 


APPENDIX. 


311 


with good, and maintaining amicable relations even with peoples, 
wayward, educated to glory in successful conflicts and habitually 
practicing cruelties. “Once indeed,’'says Bancroft, “it was ru¬ 
mored that, on the Brandywine, five hundred Indians were assem¬ 
bled to concert a massacre. Caleb Pusey, with five friends, hast¬ 
ened unarmed to the scene of anticipated danger. The sachem 
repelled the calumnious report with indignation, and the little 
griefs of the tribe were canvassed and assuaged. ‘ The great God, 
who made all mankind, extends his love to Indians and English. 
The rain and the dews fall alike on the ground for both ; the sun 
shines on us equally, and we ought to love one another.’ Such 
was the diplomacy of the Quaker envoy. The king of the Dela¬ 
wares answered : ‘What you say is true. Go home and harvest the 
corn God has given you. We intend you no harm.’ The white 
man agreed with the red man, to love one another.”—2 Bancroft’s 
Hist. U. S., 402-403. 


Note 56. 

The identity of the intellectual faculties in different races of 
mankind is forcibly exhibited in Bancroft’s account of Elliott’s 
mission among the aborigines. “He spoke to them of God and 
the soul, and explained the virtues of self-denial. He became their 
law-giver. He taught the women to spin, the men to dig the ground ; 
he established for them simple forms of government ; and, in spite 
of menaces from their priests and chieftains, he instructed them in 
his own religious faith, and not without success. Groups of Indians 
used to gather round him, as round a father, and, now that their 
minds were wakened to reflection, often perplexed him with their 
questions. The minds of the philosopher and of the savage, are 
not so wide apart as is often imagined ; they both alike find it dif¬ 
ficult to solve the problem of existence. The world is divided be¬ 
tween materialists and spiritualists. ‘ What is a spirit ? ’ said the In¬ 
dians of Massachusetts to their apostle. ‘ Can the soul be inclosed 
in iron, so that it cannot get out ? ’ Every clan had some vague 
notions of immortality. ‘ Shall I know you in Heaven ? ’ said an 
inquiring red man. ‘ Our little children have not sinned ; when 
they die, whither do they go ? ’ ‘ When such die as never heard of 

Christ, where do they go ? ’ ‘Do they in heaven dwell in houses, 
and what do they do ? ’ ‘Do they know things done here on earth ? ’ 
The origin of moral evil has engaged the minds of the most subtle. 
‘Why,’ demanded the natives on the banks of the Charles, ‘why 


312 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


did not God give all men good hearts ? ’ ‘ Since God is all power¬ 

ful, why did not God kill the devil that made man so bad ? ’ Of 
themselves they fell into the mazes of fixed decrees and free-will. 

‘ Doth God know who shall repent and believe, and who not ? ” 
Cases of casuistry occurred. Elliott preached against polygamy. 

‘ Suppose a man, before he know God,’ enquired a convert, ‘ hath 
two wives ; the first childless, the second bearing him many sweet 
children whom he exceedingly loves, which of the two wives is he 
to put away ? * * * ‘ Suppose a squaw desert and flee from 

her husband, and live with another distant Indian, and desires to 
come again to her husband, who remains still unmarried ; shall the 
husband, upon her repentance, receive her again ? ’ The poet of 
civilization tells us that ‘happiness is the end of our being.’ ‘How 
shall I find happiness ? ’ demanded the savage.”—2 Bancroft’s 
Hist. U. S., 95-96. 

God, in creating the soul, could create it either perishable or 
imperishable. If he created it mortal, it must, at some allotted 
time, or under some law of its being, inevitably perish. If created 
deathless, it must, by the very law of its being, live forever. Tf such 
soul become fixed and settled in evil, it becomes an indestructible 
demon ; and, like evil spirits in human form, may become a tempter,, 
but tempting powerlessly those whose souls are not really prepared 
to yield to the temptation, and prevailing only where the soul lies 
open to welcome the tempter, and yield to the temptation. Man 
can fall beneath temptation from within or without, only from his 
own perversity, ignorance or self-delusion. 

Note 57. 

“ Not one of mankind,” says Penn, “ is exempted from this 
illumination. God discovers himself to every man ! He is in 
every breast, in the ignorant drudge as well as in Locke or Leib¬ 
nitz.”—Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 351-352. 

Of the early days of Connecticut, Bancroft says : “Every family 
was taught to look up to God, as to the fountain of all good. Yet 
life was not sombre. The spirit of frolic mingled with innocence ; 
religion itself sometimes wore the garb of gayety ; and the annual 
thanksgiving to God was, from primitive times, as joyous as it was 
sincere. Nature always asserts her rights ; and abounds in means 
of gladness.”—2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 58-59. And yet this is 
the colony famous for its primitive “ Blue Laws ; ” and that was the 
day of their vigilant enforcement ! 


APPENDIX. 


313 


Speaking of the William Penn proprietary settlements in Penn¬ 
sylvania and Delaware, Bancroft says : “It remained to dislodge 
superstition from its hiding place in the mind. The Scandinavian 
emigrants came from their native forests with imaginations clouded 
with gloomy terrors of an invisible world of fiends ; and a turbu¬ 
lent woman was brought to trial as a witch. Penn presided, and 
the Quakers on the jury out-numbered the Swedes. The grounds 
of accusation were canvassed ; the witnesses calmly examined, and 
the jury having listened to the charge from the governor, returned 
this verdict : ‘ The prisoner is guilty of the common fame of being 
a witch, but not guilty as she stands indicted.’ The friends of the 
prisoner were required to give bail that she keep the peace ; and, 
in Penn’s domain, from that day to this, neither demon nor hag 
ever rode through the air on goat or broomstick ; and the worst 
arts of conjuration went no further than to foretell fortunes, mut¬ 
ter powerful spells over quack medicines, or discover, by the divin¬ 
ing rod, the hidden treasures of the buccaneers.”—2 Bancroft’s 
Hist. U. S., 39 2 - 393 - 

Among people who pervert, or have perverted this instinct of 
the love of or the belief in the wonderful, or remain with little or no 
vital, living faith in God or knowledge of his real laws, these super¬ 
stitions and all others are apt to be especially prevalent. 

“ The Infinite,” says Bancroft, “ is everywhere ; and every¬ 
where man has acknowledged it, beholding in every power the re¬ 
sult of an infinite attribute. The same truth superstition admits, 
yet disguises, when it fills the air with spectres, or startles ghosts 
among the tombs or studies the stars to cast a horoscope ; or gazes 
on the new moon with confiding credulity; or yielding blindly 
to fear, beholds in the evil that is in the world, the present malig¬ 
nity of Satan. The belief in witchcraft had fastened itself on the 
elements of religious faith and become deeply branded into the 
common mind.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 73. That which often 
is attributed to the malignity of Satan, is but too often the non¬ 
education, mis-education, negligence, error or diabolism of man. 

This belief in witchcraft, a perversion of the function of the 
instinct of faith in the wonderful, was an heirloom from Europe, 
and a relic of heathen superstition. In England laws had been 
gravely passed against witchcraft, and trials and convictions 
were had there.—Hume’s History of England, 737. “The fan¬ 
aticism,” says Hume as to Scotland, “which prevailed, being 
so full of sour and angry principles, and so overcharged with 


314 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


various antipathies, had acquired a new object of abhorence : 
these were the sorcerers. So prevalent was the opinion of witch¬ 
craft, that great numbers, accused of that crime, were burnt by 
sentence of the magistrates, throughout all parts of Scotland. 
In a village near Berwic, which contained only fourteen houses, 
fourteen persons were punished by fire; and it became a science, 
everywhere much studied and cultivated, to distinguish a true 
witch by proper trials and symptoms.”—2 Hume’s Hist, of Eng¬ 
land, 405. Was this a beginning of expert testimony ? 

Scarcely less terrible were the results of a like perversion of 
this instinct at and about Salem, now Danvers, Massachusetts. 
“ Already,” says Bancroft, “ twenty persons had been put to death 
for witchcraft: fifty-five had been tortured or terrified into peni¬ 
tent confessions. With accusations, confessions increased ; with 
confessions, new accusations. * * * The jails were full. It 

was also observed that no one of the condemned confessing witch¬ 
craft had been hanged. No one that confessed and retracted a 
confession had escaped either hanging or imprisonment for trial. 
No one of the condemned, who asserted innocence, even if one of 
the witnesses confessed perjury, or the foreman of the jury ac¬ 
knowledged the error of the verdict, escaped the gallows. Favor¬ 
itism was shown in listening to accusations, which were turned 
aside from friends or partizans. If a man began a career as a 
witch-hunter, and becoming convinced of the imposture, declined 
the service, he was accused and hanged. * * * Witnesses con¬ 

victed of perjury were cautioned and permitted still to swear away 
the lives of others. It was certain, people had been tempted to 
become accusers by promise of favor.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 
93-94. What a pregnant lesson is here to judges to keep them¬ 
selves free from any bias extraneous to the clear facts and evi¬ 
dence of the case they are to adjudicate. This instinct ceasing to 
digest its proper pabulum in the really wonderful, will crave to en¬ 
joy it in the merest fictions—some of which are but mariners’ or 
travelers’ tales, such as are caricatured in the Travels of Mun¬ 
chausen. 

“ The earliest books on America,” says Bancroft, “ contained 
tales as wild as fancy could invent or credulity repeat. The land 
was peopled with pigmies and with giants ; the tropical forests 
were said to conceal tribes of negroes ; and tenants of the hyper¬ 
borean regions were said to be like the polar bear or the ermine. 
Jacques Cartier had heard of a nation that did not eat; and the 


APPENDIX. 


315 


pedant Lafitau believed, if not in a race of headless men, at least 
that there was a race of men with the head not rising above the 
shoulders ! ”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 236. 

Yet how many people, travelers and others, pervert and abuse 
this instinctive love of the wonderful, so as to be easily captivated 
with one or more of such wonders ; and yet are utterly skeptical to 
any rational belief in the great Wonder-worker, and to all His mar¬ 
velous manifestations in nature and in their own souls, and to every 
consciousness of His benevolent and just laws, dethroning both, to 
worship, wonder at or tremble before mere figments of their own or 
other’s brains—fortune or misfortune ! 

The capricious alarms of superstition are thus described as 
preceding the war of King Philip of Pokanoket with the colonists. 
“The minds of the English were appalled by the horrors of the im¬ 
pending conflict; and superstition indulged in its wildest inven¬ 
tions. At the time of the eclipse of the moon, you might have seen 
the figure of an Indian scalp imprinted on the centre of its disk. 
The perfect form of an Indian bow appeared in the sky. The 
sighing of the wind was like the whistling of bullets. Some dis¬ 
tinctly heard invisible troops of horses gallop through the air; 
while others found the prophecy of calamities in the howling of 
wolves.”—2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 101-102. 

Both the statesmen of civilized nations and the leaders of 
savage tribes understand the power and energy of this instinct, 
and do not hesitate to employ the superstitions of the masses to 
advance their purposes. 

The auguries, omens and oracles of the Greeks and Romans 
are familiar to every classical scholar. 

“ After the plan of his policy had been matured in his mind,” 
says Lanman, “Pontiac called a grand council of his warriors at 
the river Aux Georce, and he there addressed them with great 
vigor and eloquence. Taking advantage of that superstition, which 
belongs to the Indian character, he stated that the Great Spirit 
had appeared to a Delaware Indian in a dream, in which the course 
of the Indians at this crisis was clearly prescribed,” etc.—Lan- 
man’s Hist. Michigan, 102. Speaking again of the later war, 
which the great Tecumseh organized against the whites, Lanman 
says: “ He adopted the same arguments for that object, which had 
before been used by Pontiac. The prophet was to be the first 
mover of this expedition, which was directed to unite, in a general 
confederacy, all the Indians of the Northwest against the progress 


316 


VIA MORALIS VINOENDI. 


of the American settlements. For that object, the same supersti¬ 
tion, which had been used to prevent Jacques Carti'er from ascend¬ 
ing the St. Lawrence, and by Pontiac, in 1763, against the British, 
was called in aid of this work. As early as 1806, the prophet, like 
Pontiac, commenced his project. It was affirmed that he had had 
a dream in which he had seen the Great Spirit, and that he was 
made his agent on earth,” etc.—Lanman’s Hist, of Michigan, 175. 
And it is impossible to decide whether those great Indian chiefs, 
brooding over the imminence of white supremacy, and the speedy 
loss of their hunting grounds and their game, may not have 
been self-deluded by a dream, the natural sequence of the domi¬ 
nant thoughts of their waking moods and their own hopes and 
superstition, and so deluded their followers to their own destruc¬ 
tion. Superstition is but the debasement of that awe and fear 
justly due to the Almighty Unknown Wonder-worker, to meaner 
objects, real or imaginary—objects, that even when real are unwor¬ 
thy of wonder, awe or fear, and that, in general, have no existence 
save in the imaginations and beliefs of men : or it substitutes fan¬ 
tasies, dreams, omens or oth^r pretended revelations, for an intelli¬ 
gent study and rational knowledge of the divine law and will. 

Note 58 . 

Discipline by churches of half-believers, pretended professors 
or scandalous livers among its members—the tares sown among the 
wheat—easy as it might seem, is a difficult and delicate task, re¬ 
quiring great discretion. “ More deep and heartless villainy,” says 
Charlotte Elizabeth in her Flower Garden, title, The Meeting, p. 
19, “ never glared from the world’s most brazen and unblushing- 
front than I have encountered beneath the smooth aspect of sanc¬ 
timonious piety. * * * The false charity which shrinks from 
exposing one real hypocrite, inflicts an injury more deep, more per¬ 
vading and more abiding, than the unmasking of a hundred de¬ 
ceivers could do. * * * St. Paul was not uncharitable when 
he exhorted the Christian church to purge out the leaven from among 
them : our venerable reformers were not uncharitable, when they 
framed the rubric, excluding from the Lord’s table such as having 
wronged a neighbor should neglect to make fitting reparation. * * 
When a man is known by those who know him well, to be capable 
of destroying a neighbor’s character through envy and malignity, 
or selling it for filthy lucre’s sake—when he has been found to 
make his religious way of talking a cloak for licentiousness, for 


APPENDIX. 


317 


ambition and worldly advantage, he ought to be so dealt with by 
those who are godly, as either to alarm him from his sin or to shame 
him out of his false profession.” 

Note 59— Chapter XIX. 

“Right morals are born of a right conscience only ; and in the 
early days of French dominion on the soil of America, when there 
were few inhabitants save the savages, the fur traders and the 
coureurs des bois , so solicitous were the intelligent French for the 
morals of the settlers, that at the Sault Saint Marie, a point of gen¬ 
eral resort for these purposes, it was deemed necessary to retain a 
Jesuit, for the preservation of the public morals.”—Lanman’s Hist. 
Michigan, 38. At a very early date for a like purpose, the govern 
ment established a college of Jesuits at Montreal. An equal solic¬ 
itude for the preservation or exaltation of morals fills every intelli¬ 
gent mind, not only from a motive of duty or benevolence, but 
from that of an enlightened self-interest and desire of security also. 
For none can tell upon whom or in what manner the immoral may 
bring loss, affliction or degradation. 

Note 60 . 

The doctrine of intellectual freedom has been of slow growth ; 
in despite of the intrinsic absurdity of the attempt to create a 
sound belief or real conformity by pains, penalties, force or tortures. 
Even during the last century, the just act of toleration proposed 
by William of Orange, was vehemently opposed, and, for a time, 
defeated, and the persecutions, continued on the Continent, caused 
the rapid development of the American colonies ; and it is only 
within the present century that the doctrine can be said to have 
generally prevailed ; although the spirit of bigotry and persecution 
is not yet wholly extinct, and never will be, until egotism and in¬ 
ordinate wrath on the one hand, or superstition on the other, be¬ 
come, in all men, subjugated to right reason and that Christian humil¬ 
ity, meekness and charity that seeks to work out even right ends by 
the spirit of love and not that of hate or self-sufficiency. In its high¬ 
est developments, humanity may be wooed, won or convinced, but 
never driven or coerced : and, in its feeblest or basest only, can it 
be combated or coerced to profession or action, so long, at least, 
as the spirit of combativeness, fortitude and anger exist in the 
psychical constitution of men. 


318 


VIA MORA LIS VINCENDI. 


Note 61—Chapter XXV. 

“The inner light (man’s divinely-inspired religious instincts, 
conscience and intelligence) is to the Quaker, not only the revela¬ 
tion of truth, but the guide of life and the oracle of duty. He de¬ 
mands that uniform predominance of the world of thought over 
the world of sensation. The blameless enthusiasts, well aware of 
the narrow powers and natural infirmities of man, yet aims at 
perfection from sin ; and, tolerating no compromise, demands the 
harmonious development of man’s higher powers, with the entire 
subjection of the base to the higher instincts. The motives to 
conduct and its rule are like truths, to be sought in the soul.”—2 
Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 344. 

Note 62— Chapter XXVII. 

The savage tribes of America, and in fact savages generally 
accumulate nothing, acquire but the most limited ideas of property 
confined chiefly to clothing and their implements of the chase and 
of warfare, and are exemplars of the feebleness of this instinct and 
of a high order of intelligence and art also. But that relative fee¬ 
bleness of this instinct may and does also co-exist with a high order 
of mental and moral power, and in men without the latter also. 
The prodigals are generally of the latter class, especially all of 
them, whose prodigality consists in vicious or animal indulgences. 
The two Winthrops—the father in Massachusetts, and the son, the 
consolidator of the two colonies of Rhode Island and New Haven 
into one, and the founder of Connecticut—are memorable exam¬ 
ples of the relative weakness or the subordination of this faculty to 
higher aims. “When his father,” says Bancroft, “the father of 
Massachusetts, became impoverished by his expenses in planting 
the colony, the pious son, unsolicited and without recompense, re¬ 
linquished his large inheritance that it might be spent in further¬ 
ing the great work in Massachusetts ; himself, single-handed, and 
without wealth, engaging in the enterprize of planting Connecti¬ 
cut. Care for posterity, seemed to be the motive of his actions.”— 
2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 52-53. 

Note 63. 

It was the enlightened activity of this instinct, acting in behalf 
of themselves and their posterity, that led our ancestors to adopt 
and firmly maintain, at the imminent hazard of life and fortune, the 
principle of no taxation without representation, so often repeated 


APPENDIX. 


319 


in their state papers ; and it led Lord Camden also to a bold ad¬ 
vocacy of the same principle in the British Parliament itself, with 
a courage and justice, which, in the then state of British sentiment 
few legislators, not hereditary, would have dared to manifest. 

“ My position,” said he, “is this ; I repeat it, I will maintain it to 
my last hour—taxation and representation are inseparable. This 
position is founded on the laws of nature ; it is more—it is itself 
an eternal law of nature : for, whatever is a man’s own is abso¬ 
lutely his own : no man has a right to take it from him without 
his consent. Whoever attempts to do it, attempts an injury : who¬ 
ever does it, commits a robbery.”—Willard’s Rep. of America, 150, 
note. 

That every man should enjoy the fruits of his own industry 
and right intelligence, is a divine law of justice, and the foundation 
of every just right of property, which human laws but recognize, 
re-affirm and enforce. And the very existence of this instinct in 
man indicates the right. Its legitimate activity has been seen in 
all the useful industries of the country ; and in some of its useful 
or elevating and refining amusements, from the earliest settlement 
of the country to the present time, and, in fact, for ever every¬ 
where. But here especially, “a mighty enterprise was at work, 
under the action of free and equal laws, and it scattered its in¬ 
fluence through the forests. * * * And the Indian, as he ceded 

his domain to the English government, retired further and further 
into the wilderness, and his bark wigwam gave place to th$}og hut 
of the settler. The echo of the settler’s axe started the wolf from 
his den, and he soon followed in the track of the savages. The 
inland seas, which, for centuries had mirrored little but the setting 
sun upon their surface, unbroken except by the Indian, the mis¬ 
sionary or the trader * * * were now studded with ships and 

steamboats, and all the machinery of commerce.”—Lanman’s Hist. 
Mich., 232-233. 

Note 64 . 

Such a state of society is described by Lanman, in his account 
of the population of Quebec and Montreal, in 1720, of many thous¬ 
ands. “ It consisted of nobles, nuns, priests, artizans, traders and 
soldiers, connected with the machinery of the church and state. 
A polished form of society, instinctive in the French nation, pre¬ 
vailed here. A great portion of their lives was spent in amuse¬ 
ment, and much wealth was squandered in extravagance. In sum¬ 
mer, the colonists embarked in parties of pleasure, in their calashes 


320 


VIA MOEALIS VINCENDI. 


or canoes ; and, in winter, they drove their carioles upon the snow 
or skated upon the river.”—Lanman’s Hist, of Michigan, 330. 

Note 65. 

Of the most common form of the perverted activity of this 
instinct, all the daily attempts to get rich with'out labor, or by 
fraudulent or speculative devices, are notorious examples at this 
day. And the divining rod and digging for hidden treasure, have 
attended the past, still haunt the present and will re-appear where- 
ever indolent or enervated mind or body co-exist with supersti¬ 
tion. 

Alike in our Revolutionary war, the war of 1812 and the late 
war, this perverse spirit became manifest—not generated but de¬ 
veloped by opportunity. The peculations and frauds of the late 
war, too recent to require specification, were but repetitions of the 
condition of affairs in 1779, exaggerated perhaps by the larger 
opportunities and temptations, and like abuses probably attend all 
wars. In regard to the war of the Revolution in 1779, it is related 
that “the disorders of the times had produced a race of men, 
who seeking solely to enrich themselves, made a trade of the pub¬ 
lic distress. What did they care if their country should fall, if 
they could share her spoils ? Freedom, for them might perish, so 
they could but batten on her corse. Army supplies enriched them, 
as they afforded them pretences for their peculations ; and the 
state often paid dearly for what it never received. Such wretches 
are ever the loudest to chime in with the tune of the times : hypo¬ 
crites in patriotism ; vaporous in talking of their country’s rights, 
they deceived the undiscerning and acquired an influence, by which 
they sought to remove from office all who obstructed their designs ; 
and, by their intrigues, the appalling cry of 1 tory’ was raised, and 
sometimes not in vain, against the upright officer who refused to 
connive at their selfish rapacity.”—Willard’s Rep. of America, 232- 
233- 

But the curse of slavery, and its sequence our late civil war 
inflicted upon these United States, is perhaps the worst manifesta¬ 
tion in history of this excessive or perverted greed on the part of 
the monarchs of England and Spain and the traders of England. 
By the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, “ Her Britannic Majesty did offer 
and undertake by persons whom she shall appoint, to bring into 
the West Indies of America, belonging to His Catholic Majesty, 
in the space of thirty years, one hundred and fifty-four thousand 


APPENDIX. 


321 


negroes, paying on four thousand of them a duty of thirty-three 
and a third dollars a head. The assientists might introduce as 
many more as they pleased, at the less rate of duty of sixteen and 
two-thirds dollars a head—only no scandal was to be offered to 
the Catholic religion ! Exactest care was taken to secure a monop¬ 
oly. No Frenchman, nor Spaniard, nor any other person might 
introduce one negro slave into Spanish America. For the Spanish 
world, in the Gulf of Mexico, on the Atlantic and along the Pacific, 
as well as for the English colonies, Her Britannic Majesty, by per¬ 
sons of her appointment, was the exclusive slave-trader—England 
extorted the privilege of filling the New World with negroes. As 
great profits were anticipated from the trade, Philip V., of Spain, took 
one-quarter of the common stock, agreeing to pay for it by a stock 
note ; Queen Anne reserved to herself another quarter ; and the 
remaining moiety was to be divided among her subjects.”—3 Ban¬ 
croft’s Hist. U. S., 232. 

Another of the abuses of this instinct in the early colonial days 
of Louisiana—“The colonists,” says Bancroft, “were unwise in 
their objects, searching for pearls, for the wool of the buffalo, for 
productive mines. Their scanty number was scattered on discov¬ 
eries, or among the Indians in quest of furs. There was no quiet 
agricultural industry.”—2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 205. 

One of the worst of modern abuses of it, is the multiplication 
of mere dram shops, with neither food nor other necessary of life, 
in every locality, under the name of restaurants, hotels or saloons. 

Note 66. 

This instinct has its own heroism. Speaking of the rush of 
settlement to the rich alluvions of the Mississippi, Lanman said, in 
1839, “To that remote region,”—it was then far more remote in 
fact than it is in this day of internetted railways—“ where sickly 
exhalations rise from the stagnant fens and mouldering forests, and 
fill the graves along its banks, emigration is fast pressing. Cities 
are stuck along its shores. Harvests are gilding its fields. Its 
waters are ploughed by a thousand keels of boatmen, loving life 
less than gain.”—Lanman’s Hist. Mich., 21. 

And speaking of D’Hiberville, the chief of one of the earliest 
colonizing expeditions to Louisiana, Bancroft says of him : “ At¬ 
tacked by the yellow fever ”—a curse encountered by all the set¬ 
tlers of the sea-board of the sunny South—“ D’Hiberville escaped 
with his life ; but his health was broken ; and, though he gained 

U 


322 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


strength to render service to France in 1706, the effort was fol¬ 
lowed by a severe illness, which terminated in his death at Havana. 
In him, the colonists and the French navy lost a hero worthy of 
their regret.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 205. 

The same might be said of Champlain, La Salle and many 
others. The pioneers of America—men and women generally, were 
a heroic race, encountering at once, at the South, the perils of that 
deadly pest, the yellow fever, at the North, the certain scourge of 
bilious or intermittent fevers, caused by the malaria of swamps and 
decaying vegetation ; and everywhere the dangers of wild beasts 
and of savage Indians, and all the hardships of the wilderness. 
Not less hazardous was the enterprize of the early gold-seekers of 
California, Montana and other metaliferous regions. 

Note 67 . 

“The governors appointed by the court, had always been sup¬ 
ported by the voluntary appropriations of the colonial assemblies. 
The government of England perceived, that by leaving the gov¬ 
ernors dependent for their salaries on the pleasure of those they 
governed, they would be likely to subserve their interests rather 
than those of the crown ; and in 1702, Sir Joseph Dudley, who ar¬ 
rived as governor of Massachusetts, laid before the assembly his 
instructions from the Queen, to demand for himself and the other 
' officers of the crown a settled and permanent salary.”—Willard’s 
Rep. of America, 93. 

Is it indeed true, in its evil sense, that “every man has his price,” 
as was said by a great French statesman—that even the noble and the 
great, fit to be entrusted to represent the crown, can be made perverts 
to a right discharge of duty by considerations of emolument ? The 
better theory of those instructions is—that power thirsts ever after 
its own increment, and to become unlimited and illimitable. Hav¬ 
ing received checks and limitations at home, the English govern¬ 
ment had resolved to assert its supremacy in the colonies. And 
as a first step to the attainment and maintenance of that supremacy, 
it sought to make the support of its officers and agents independ¬ 
ent of the will of the colonies. 

Again, referring to the general approval with which the ad¬ 
dress of the first Colonial Congress was received : “ Complete unan¬ 
imity,” says the same historian, “ however, did not exist. Some 
of the late emigrants on whom England had bestowed offices, and 
many who feared her power, clung to her authority, and declared 


APPENDIX. 


323 


themselves her adherents. Whigs and tories were the distinguish¬ 
ing name of the parties. The former favored the cause of the 
colonists ; the latter that of Great Britain.”—Willard’s Rep. of 
America. 

Thank God that neither potentates or any human power had 
means or favors enough, in the name of protection or under any 
other name, to pervert the masses ! But other and more honora¬ 
ble attachments and loyalties may have biased the recent emi¬ 
grants from the mother country. 

Note 68—Chapter XXYIII. 

The exaggerations of travelers, not infrequently have their 
origin in either their own vanity, or in their too easy credulity of 
the tales prompted by the vanity of their informants. Speaking of 
the Indian nations or tribes east of the Mississippi, at the period 
of their discovery, Bancroft says : “ Many of them—the Narragan- 
setts, the Illinois, boasted of the superior strength of their former 
condition ; and from wonder, from fear, from the ambition of ex¬ 
citing surprise, early travelers often repeated the Exaggerations of 
savage vanity.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 251-252. But the vice 
of exaggeration is by no means confined to travelers or savages, 
but enslaves the vain of civilized communities as completely. 

The vanity of civilized and savage life, each have their osten¬ 
tations of raiment and decoration, if not also that of equipage 
and palace, tasteful or otherwise : and whatever is not tasteful and 
beautiful in its simplicity and elegance, is barbaric. Mere glare, 
oddity and astonishingness is vulgar as well as barbaric, if not pos¬ 
itively vicious ; and it is certainly the latter, when it transcends 
one’s means or fortune. These varied manifestations of vanity in 
civilized life are too familiar to need special mention. The savage, 
according to his command of means of astounding vulgar attention, 
is equally ostentatious with the most stunning of his civilized breth¬ 
ren. “ The women,” says Bancroft, “glittered with tufts of elk 
hair, brilliantly dyed in scarlet, and strings of various kinds of 
shells were their pearls and diamonds. The summer garments of 
moose and deer skin were painted of many colors, and the fairest 
feathers of the turkey, fastened by threads made from wild hemp 
and nettles, were curiously wrought into mantles. The claws of 
the grizzly bear formed a proud collar for a war chief ; a piece of 
an enemy’s scalp, with a tuft of long hair painted red, glittered on 
the stem of their war pipes ; the wing of a red-bird or the beak and 


324 


VIA M0RALIS VINCENDI. 


plumage of a raven decorated their locks ; the skin of a rattle-snake 
was worn around the arm of their chief ; the skin of the pole-cat 
bound round the leg was their order of the garter—emblem of 
noble daring. A warrior’s dress was often a history of his deeds. 
His skin also tattooed with the figures of animals, of leaves, of 
flowers, and painted with lively and shining colors.”—3 Bancroft’s 
Hist. U. S., 274. All this, or any other, stunning style of equip¬ 
ment is eminently suitable to the demi-monde and the black-leg, 
and others who must attract attention for sinister ends : but par¬ 
takes of the vice of immodesty, and strikes and attracts the senses 
only; and is never tolerated where good taste prevails. 

But this instinct, perverted, aspires not only to these or like 
comparatively harmless ostentations. The real and noble distinc¬ 
tions of an honorable fame are only attainable by disciplined facul¬ 
ties and noble deeds or great works : and they, by whom such dis¬ 
tinctions are not attainable, or who are too weak and indolent so to 
seek them, are generally tempted to court notoriety by lower arti¬ 
fice or infamous pretensions. They may be, in their own conceit, 
or by pretension merely, astrologers, diviners, seers, fortune-tellers, 
revealers of stolen, hidden or lost things, healers, statesmen, ora¬ 
tors, sages, wonder-workers, witch-detecters, or any or all of the 
hundred impossible shams or sham experts or wonders that per¬ 
ambulate loudly the world. In Bancroft’s account of the Salem 
witchcraft delusion is one example of this illicit thirst for distinc¬ 
tion. “ The ministers of the neighborhood held at the afflicted 
house a day of fasting and prayed; and the little children became 
the most conspicuous personages in Salem. Of a sudden, the op¬ 
portunity of fame, of which the love is not the exclusive infirmity 
of noble minds, was placed within the reach of persons of the 
coarsest mould ; and the ambition of notoriety recruited the little 
company of the possessed.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 85 ; and see 
Not zante, as to Arnold’s ostentatious living, who, not content with 
a noble fame, well earned in the battle field as a patriot, sought 
also the notoriety of glare. In like manner, publications of crime 
heroizing criminals, tend to recruit the jails; and, however, 
sensational newspapers may pervert themselves into criminal cal¬ 
endars or annalists of crime, there is seldom anything really new 
in crime, except perhaps a new criminal. 

Again the same author says of Cotton Mather, the minister, 
who with another, one Parris, was the head and front of the witch¬ 
craft delusion : “ Was Cotton Mather honestly credulous ? Ever 


APPENDIX. 


325 


ready to dupe himself, he limited his credulity only by the prob¬ 
able credulity of others. He changes, or omits to repeat his state¬ 
ments, without acknowledging error, and with a clear intention 
of conveying false impressions. He is an example, how far sel¬ 
fishness, under the form of vanity and ambition, can blind the 
higher faculties, stupefy the judgment and dupe consciousness it¬ 
self.—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S. 

And the selfishness of any other dominant instinct will do the 
same, even with the otherwise really great, as in the case of Napo¬ 
leon, the Great, who, beginning with a dream of a European uni¬ 
versal republic, established an empire; and Cromwell, who com¬ 
mencing with fighting the battles of liberty, established only his own 
despotism. Every man, to be really righteous and attain the im¬ 
mortal glory of a virtuous and beneficent life, on whatever theatre 
of action, needs to be on guard, especially, against the self-deceits 
of his own dominant passion or passions. 

Note 69 . 

The right activity of this instinct, in common or extraordinary, 
little or great affairs or societies, appears in every effort rightly to 
please others; and to merit and win their good opinion and com¬ 
mendation, by pleasant cheerful looks, and beneficent, just, pious, 
faithful and courageous deeds that may worthily win and wear it: 
and they, who really are powerfully and nobly animated by it, are 
as ready to manifest pleasure at the like efforts of others to please 
them, as they are to seek that applause themselves : and such peo¬ 
ple constitute the really polite and agreeable society of the world, 
whether otherwise the best or not. It is in its domestic and social 
sphere, one of the most amiable of the virtues of man, as in public 
matters it is one of the grandest and most beneficent when guided 
by conscience and the spirit of devotion. Except as envy or jeal¬ 
ousy, it is the most innocent of instincts. 

Note 70 —Chapter XXIX. 

The Onondaga warrior, in his hour of death, after having 
stoically suffered prolonged torture, and lived up to his ideal, ut¬ 
tered the natural language of this instinct, when he proudly ex¬ 
claimed : “ For my own part, I die contented, because I know no 
meanness with which to reproach myself.”—Lanman’s Hist. Mich., 
15. It is the sense of high and taintless honor that rises above and 
ev$r spurns the low, the mean and the vile, in thought, word and 


326 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


deed, according to the ideal of those whom it inspires. Yet they, 
who have a high or any standard of ethics, and know the habits in 
peace and war of the Indian, know how fallacious really was such 
a boast, their whole system of warfare being little better than 
assassination and pillage. 

A like self-esteem was a characteristic of the Algonquin chief 
Pontiac, is a general characteristic of the lawless Indian, and is 
not uncommon in civilized communities, and characterizes the so- 
called high toned. Yet Pontiac “combined,” says Lanman, “all 
the traits of character, which distinguished men in civilized states, 
whether in the forum or in the field. He was grasping in his pro¬ 
jects, while he had sufficient dissimulation to conceal them; his 
courage was unconquerable ; his pride was the pride of the proud¬ 
est chief of the proudest nation on earth.”—Lanman’s Hist. Mich., 
90. 

But the instinct is not the parent of a sense of self-elevation or 
pride only, nor even then is it wholly inane ; for it lifts its subject 
above whatever seems to him or her mean or degrading. It also 
aspires, and lusts for actual elevation of character, noble deeds and 
potential elevation by extending dominion over other human beings, 
or extended territorial dominion : or, in other words, it is the high 
ambition that inspires the writer, the orator, the sage, the states¬ 
man, the warrior or those who in any way or in any sphere rule the 
bodies or minds of men. It animated alike the French and the 
English governments in their early contests upon this continent, in 
which England, with the help of the colonists, was the victor. 
“The prize at stake,” says Lanman, “ was a country of unbounded 
resources and magnificent features; and the struggle to attain it 
was made between two nations, whose constitution has evinced at 
every period of their subsequent history, repugnant principles. In 
the American wilderness, was exemplified too, the all-grasping 
power of national ambition.”—Lanman’s Hist. Mich., 11-12. 

A like motive animated the earlier colonists and their leaders, 
when not driven hither by persecutions, and the love of liberty 
civil and religious. “The design of the adventurers,” says Lan¬ 
man, “ was to aggrandize themselves by founding new empires, 
and their motive was the love of gain and dominion.”—Lanman’s 
Hist. Mich., 1. 

In its perverted action, it will not bear the imputation of error, 
familiarity or even the semblance of insult or rudeness. Speaking 
of the accusation of witchcraft against Rebecca Nourse as a witch 


APPENDIX. 


327 


and her execution under sentence as such, Bancroft says : “ The 
governor, who himself was not unmerciful, saw cause to grant a re¬ 
prieve ; but Parris had preached against Rebecca Nourse, and 
prayed against her, had induced the afflicted to witness against her, 
had caused her sisters to be imprisoned for their honorable sym¬ 
pathy. She must perish or the delusion was unveiled, and the 
governor recalled the reprieve. On the next communion day, she 
was taken in chains to the meeting house, to be formally excom¬ 
municated by Noyes, her minister, and was hanged with the rest.” 
—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 90. And false pride is capable of other 
and equal atrocities; and the person who cannot tolerate the im¬ 
putation of error or mistake, is ever a dangerous member of the 
community. 

In nations, as well as individuals, this self-esteem may rise in¬ 
to inordinate self-conceit, exalting itself and depressing others, and 
is then a vice, the opposite to that of flattery, and is dangerous to 
one’s self, as well as insolent and annoying or even dangerous to 
the peace and equanimity of others. So in 1776, the confidence 
of Great Britain in the ability of the mistress of the seas and the 
arbiter of the destinies of Europe, to quell rebellion and legislate 
for her colonies, in all cases whatsoever, lost her the most precious 
colonial jewel of her crown. The idea filled the minds of the Brit¬ 
ish sovereign, statesmen and people, with few exceptions, and 
in the course of the debates in Parliament, the Americans were 
branded “ with the epithets of cowards and poltroons : and some, 
pretending to be well acquainted with their character, de¬ 
clared them incapable of military discipline or exertion, and that 
a small military force would reduce them to obedience.”—Willard’s 
Rep. of America, 182. And so in the war of 1812 for free seas, 
free ships and sailor’s rights with Great Britain, notwithstanding, 
the lesson that she ought to have learned from the Revolutionary 
war, after the fall of Napoleon, “ it was held in that country, that 
Britain, so long the undisputed mistress of the ocean, would soon 
be able to sweep from the ocean the ships of America; and that 
those troops which had acquired so much glory when contending 
with the' veteran armies of Europe, would no sooner show them¬ 
selves on the western side of the Atlantic, than the panic-struck 
soldiers of the United States would be driven far within their fron¬ 
tiers.”—Willard’s Rep. of America, 374, Note. So the Iroquois, 
or Five Nations, fondly embraced the illusions of a still loftier con¬ 
ceit. “ They proudly deemed themselves,” says Bancroft, “supreme 


328 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


among mankind, men excelling all others ; and hereditary arro¬ 
gance inspired them with dauntless courage.”—2 Bancroft’s Hist. 
U. S. 

And so prior to the late civil war, mutual arrogance had not 
a little to do with its inauguration. The conceit of the South 
vaunted its chivalry and prowess, and despised the North as pusil¬ 
lanimous mudsills or grovelling incombative traders—mere wor¬ 
shipers of gain ; that of the North dreamed of nothing more than 
a six months’ campaign—a sort of a holiday march over a pros¬ 
trate people to the Gulf of Mexico. 

Verily, “ whom the gods will to destroy, they first make mad,” 
and there is no madness more fatal than the arrogance, madness 
and judicial blindness born of this instinct. Courage inheres in 
every race ; pusillanimity characterizes the few, until luxury on the 
one hand, or misery on the other, emasculates a people; human 
power is limited; but arrogance and conceit in its individuals or 
nations is illimitable even in the feeblest, until it is taught wisdom 
and self-estimation by reverses and calamities. With us of the 
North, it took many defeats, four years of gigantic conflict, billions 
of treasure and millions of men to fully correct the six months and 
three hundred thousand men theory of the North : and Louis Napo¬ 
leon’s arrogance was only corrected when the enemy with whom he 
invited war, after a short, sharp campaign, thundered at the gates 
of his capital. 

But a dignified self-esteem that does not deem itself “supreme, 
excelling all others; ” that holds its possessor above whatever is 
wrong, faithless, arbitrary or mean, and yet does not deem itself in¬ 
capable of mistake or error and is not unwilling to acknowledge it, 
is essential to a really noble and dignified character in a people or 
an individual, of which our own Washington is an illustrious ex¬ 
emplar. After a long and eminent career, and near the conclusion 
of his second official term as President, self-imposed as his last, con¬ 
ducted as prudently as he had conducted his military campaigns, 
he modestly says in his farewell address to the people : “In the 
discharge of this trust, I will only say, that I have with good in¬ 
tentions contributed to the organization and administration of the 
government, the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment 
was capable. Not unconscious, in the outset, of the inferiority of 
my qualifications, experience, in my own eyes, perhaps still more in 
the eyes of others, has strengthened the motives to diffidence of 
myself ! ”—Willard’s Rep. of America, ap., xxxm. And again he 


APPENDIX. 


329 


says : “ Though in viewing the incidents of my administration, I am 
unconscious of intentional error, I am too sensible of my defects 
not to think it probable, that I may have committed many errors. 
Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert 
or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry 
with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them 
with indulgence ; and that, after forty five years of my life devoted 
to its service, with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities 
will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the man¬ 
sions of rest.”—Willard’s Rep. of America, ap., xlii. 

Note 71 — Chapter XXX. 

Nothing more unhinges or paralyzes the mind than unreason¬ 
able or excessive anxieties prompted by this instinct, or more cer¬ 
tainly tends to suicide. But even the American savage “ believed 
that to every man, there is an appointed time to die ; to anticipate 
that period by suicide was detested as the meanest cowardice.” 
And so it is ; and the criminal code of the State of New York 
rightly makes the attempt a crime. None have a right to end the 
life that God gives, nor to shirk the God-ordained duties of that life, 
nor the care of helpless dependents, nor can any parent so rightly 
leave his offspring to their own self-tutelage or the cold care and 
charities of strangers. And to destroy or shorten life through will¬ 
ful ignorance, negligence or excess, is but little less criminal than 
its willful destruction. 

Note 72 . 

The utterly senseless, unreasoning and unreasonable fears or 
panics, indulged in by the weak or the superstitious, are of such daily 
manifestation and so ludicrous at times and so numerous in kind 
as neither to require or admit of specification. But a sound real 
intelligence excludes them or converts them into forecast or pru¬ 
dence. 

But the most remarkable and unaccountable of panics are 
those, which in times of financial distress or difficulty, seizes upon 
coporate bodies, into which a multitude of counselors ought to bring 
clear-sighted wisdom ; and that, which many times seizes upon an 
entire army, whose multitude alone ought to insure their safety 
from senseless panic. And yet more or less the one attends upon 
all periods of financial difficulty, and the other is liable to occur 
in the course of any war. Their universality must be due to the 
contagion of a sympathetic terror. 


330 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


Note 73—Chapter XXXI. 

Another illustration from private life, taken by Mrs. Willard, 
is thus stated by her: “If a father fully believes himself justly 
possessed of power over his son, or an elder brother over a younger, 
which the son or younger brother solemnly considers as a mere 
tyrannical assumption, to which he could not submit without de¬ 
grading himself into a state of slavery, it is not difficult to predict 
that without a change of opinion on one side or the other, a con¬ 
test must arise : and, if the elder party cannot force submission 
from the younger, separation must ensue.”—Willard’s Rep. of 
America. 

Note 74 — Chapter XXXIII. 

Even in this new country, vicissitudes of empire have not been 
unknown. Referring to the United States domain, Lanman says : 
“We have thus traced in a brief way, the condition of Michigan 
under the French, and its transfer to the British government; and 
now a new power sprung upon the land. The succession of its 
changes shows us the mortality of empires as well as of men. They 
rise before us like the pagentry of a theatre, scene after scene opens 
upon us with all the array of human passions; the curtain falls ; 
they sink from our sight and another is now spread out under the 
auspices of a Republic.”—Lanman’s Hist. Mich., 167. 

And, in the history of Europe, Asia and Africa, kingdoms, re¬ 
publics and empires rise and fall before us, like the phantasmago¬ 
ria of a dream ; and steadily “ westward the star of empire takes 
its way: ” yet all serve to remind us that not only material things, 
but things abstract, like governments, the works of man, perish like 
himself. 

Note 75. 

Hatred and jealousy, caricature and satire, malignity and slan¬ 
der, are but perversions of this instinct, and are unworthy of noble 
minds. They characterize savages in savage or civilized life. 

The excesses and perversions of this instinct are terrible. In 
this class of vice are the revenges and the ordinary warfare of the 
savage, with his own race and with the whites alike, practicing 
generally a universal butchery of women and children, the armed 
and the unarmed.—See 2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 102-107. 

The atrocities, to which the bias of individual hate may con¬ 
duct men, from whose profession better things might reasonably 
be expected, is illustrated by the story of the Salem witchcraft 


APPENDIX. 


331 


mania, as told by Bancroft. “In Salem village, now Danvers, there 
had been between Samuel Parris, the minister, and a part of his 
people, a strife so bitter that it had even attracted the attention of 
the General Court. The delusion of witchcraft would give oppor¬ 
tunities of terrible vengeance. In the family of Samuel Parris, his 
daughter, a child of nine years, and his niece, a girl of less than 
twelve, began to have strong caprices. He that will read Cotton 
Mather’s Book of Memorable Providences, may read part of what 
these children suffered, and Tituba, an Indian female servant, who 
had practiced some wild incantations, being betrayed by her hus¬ 
band, was scourged by Parris, her master, into confessing herself 
a witch. * * * Yet the delusion, but for Parris, would have 

lingered. Of his own niece, the girl of eleven years of age, he de¬ 
manded the name of the devil’s instruments who bewitched the 
band of the afflicted ; and then he became at once informer and 
witness. In those days, there was no prosecuting officer ; and Par¬ 
ris was at hand to question'his Indian servant and others, himself 
prompting their answers and acting as a recorder to the magistrate. 
The recollection of the old controversy in the parish could not be 
forgotten ; and Parris, moved by personal malice, as well as by 
blind zeal, stifled the accusations of some—such is the testimony 
of the people of his own village—and at the same time vigilantly 
promoting the accusations of others, was the beginning and pro¬ 
curer of the sore afflictions to Salem village and the country.”—3 
Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 86-96. 

What the odium theologicum is capable of, is everywhere mani¬ 
fested by the constant persecution of new religions and sects by 
others having power, and by the religious wars of France, -Ger¬ 
many, Italy and the Netherlands. And the power of political 
hatred is exhibited in the chronic state of war between certain 
nations. 

Hate, malice and revenge are never justifiable. Yet restora¬ 
tion of right must be enforced, which to the wrong-doer is usually 
the worst punishment: and, where that is not possible, then he 
must be taught right through the processes of law, where that pro¬ 
vides for it; and otherwise, he may enforce right or punish in the 
most peaceable and lawful way possible—not in malice, but for 
warning and prevention. 

Note 76. 

The counsel of Washington’s farewell address to the people 
of these states, is equally valuable to them as individuals, members 


332 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


of families, of societies or of nations. “You cannot shield your¬ 
selves too much from the jealousies and heart-burnings, which 
spring from these misrepresentations. They tend to render alien 
to each other, those who ought to be bound together by fraternal 
affection.”—Willard’s Rep. of America, ap., xxxvi. 

Nothing is more alienating than the spirit of jealousy, how¬ 
ever aroused or fostered, which is usually born of this instinct, act¬ 
ing in unison with a perverted spirit of vanity or that of primacy 
and emulation. Without jealousy there may be a just, liberal and 
honorable emulation. Emulation only becomes jealousy when 
united with a desire or will to detract from, pull down or destroy 
another or his just reputation or merits, or when it is pained instead 
of pleased with the merits, successes or prosperity of another. This 
instinct is also alone the parent of antipathies and hates, which 
equally with partialities, mislead or blind the judgment. “Just 
and amicable feelings toward all,” said Washington, “ should be 
cultivated. The nation, which indulges toward another an habit¬ 
ual hatred or an habitual fondness, is in some degree its slave. It 
is a slave either to its animosity or to its affection, either of which 
is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.”—Wil¬ 
lard’s Rep. of America, ap. xxxix. And men and women of too 
affectionate dispositions need to be on their guard against being 
led by their proper and just affections, to their own excessive self- 
sacrifice, injury and wreck. 

The Indians of this continent owe many of their early misfor 
tunes, in no small degree to their readiness to ally themselves in 
active warfare through hate, jealousy, fear or favor, with one or 
the other of the European powers then contending for the mastery 
of this continent. “ The Indian confederacies,” says Lanman, 
“ the Iroquois and Algonquin, who had attached themselves to the 
French and English governments, while their causes of alliance are 
not clearly known, were equally capricious and unstable in the 
leagues which they had formed. They had, perhaps, attached 
themselves to these two rival powers, not so much from any strong 
friendship which they felt for the white men, as to increase their 
influence in battering down the power of their savage enemies, 
whom they hated with an intensity based on immemorial feuds, and 
which had been strengthened for ages.”—Lanman’s Hist, of Mich. 
And hatred or favor is a prolific source of misalliances in society, 
in business, and in politics or war. 


APPENDIX. 


333 


Note 77—Chapter XXXIV. 

“ Policy,” “state-craft,” “deep strategy,” are but manifesta¬ 
tions not of wisdom, but of this instinct, often very successful, but 
of doubtful honesty and of uncertain wisdom, even when they gain 
an end not otherwise attainable. If the fox or the serpent can be 
said to have wisdom, it is their wisdom. In it even a savage may 
outwit civilized man, or a crafty knave the trustful man of intellect. 
It has branded the Carthagenian character with the stigma of Punic 
faith, that is its opprobrium even now. Among the savages, take 
for an example of it the policy of the Huron chief Kondiaronk, 
which broke up a treaty about to be executed between the Iroquois 
and the French, and perpetuated hostilities between them so long 
as the French dominion in the North lasted.—Lanman’s Hist, of 
Mich., 23-26. Or take the policy of Great Britain after our inde¬ 
pendence was established, in inciting the savages to demand a for¬ 
mal surrender of the Northwestern territory to them, in order to 
control it, through her influence over them.—see Lanman’s Hist, of 
Mich., 155. Or take the speech of the half-breed chief Le Mar- 
quois, distributed among the Indians of the Northwest, designed 
to confederate them against the Americans, by operating on their 
superstitions and their hopes.—Lanman’s Hist. Mich., 176. And 
the entire system of warfare of the Indians, by ambuscades and 
surprises, indicates in them the domination of this instinct in their 
warlike character. The partial truce, not including Hull’s army, 
negotiated by Sir George Provost with General Dearborn, by which 
he was left at liberty to concentrate the British force for the cap¬ 
ture of Hull’s army, is perhaps an instance of lawful, far-reaching 
strategy in war, attended as it was by no falsehood.”—See Willard’s 
Rep. of America, 333, and Lanman’s Hist. Mich., 193. 

Note 78. 

But even venality, hypocrisy and baseness have, when at¬ 
tended by intellect, a species of wisdom. Speaking of the venal 
members of the first British Parliament after the restoration, Ban¬ 
croft says : “ But knavery has a wisdom of its own : the profligate 
members had a fixed maxim, never to grant so much at once that 
they should cease to be wanted : and, discovering the intrigues of 
Danby for a fixed revenue from France, they were honorably true 
to nationality, and true also to the base instinct of selfishness, they 
impeached the minister.”—2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 437-438. 


334 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


Note 79 — Chapter XXXVIII. 

Every thoughtful child or man, feeling the need of numerous 
gratifications, the impulse of many instincts and innumerable de¬ 
sires, finds himself under a necessity of toiling mentally and phys¬ 
ically in their pursuit and attainment. Consciously or uncon¬ 
sciously, this necessity compels sensible people into varied occupa¬ 
tions and to seek opportunity and fitness for them ; and opportuni¬ 
ties generally abound for the fit, if they are content to toil accord¬ 
ing to their fitness. Speaking of the emigrant pioneers, Lanman 
says : “ Forests are to be cleared, fields are to be cultivated, roads 
are to be made ; streams are to be explored, deepened and navi¬ 
gated ; cities are to be built, railroads and canals to' be constructed ; 
and frames of civil polity to be organized. They are called upon 
as founders of the country to co-operate in effecting these works. 
The fact that there is no argument like necessity to stimulate a 
man to great achievements, is felt in the energy of mind which has 
brought so many emigrants into this state. * * * Men of 

opulence stay at home. The men, who are from necessity, as 
well as from education, habituated to shoulder the burdens of life, 
are the emigrants to a country where these hardships are to be en¬ 
dured.”—Lanman’s Hist. Mich., 296. But progressive civilization 
multiplies industries and opens up new avenues of employment : 
and a like necessity laid upon man everywhere, and God’s consti¬ 
tution of men and things, continuously moves the steady wheels of 
a varied industry, and the mechanism or idealism of art through¬ 
out the wide world. While a high sense of duty may make indus¬ 
trious the few, and adds vigor to the industry of many, self-inter¬ 
est and hope usually impel the crowd and intensify effort in all; 
and where the latter cease to have encouragement, industry is dis¬ 
couraged. “As Canada,” says Lanman, “ was settled by many in¬ 
digent noblemen, to whom lands had been granted, these were not 
exactly the proper persons to advance agriculture. They were, 
for the most part, officers and gentlemen, who had not funds suf¬ 
ficient to maintain a proper number of workmen on their domain. 
It was, therefore, found necessary to settle the lands of those to 
whom lordships had been given with tenants, who were obliged to 
labor hard ; and expend all their advances of money, before they 
could|procure the necessary subsistence ; while the fur trade, which 
was the predominant spirit of the times, spread a restless and migra¬ 
tory disposition among the people. Another fact which impeded 
the progress of agriculture was the mode of tenure in the disposi- 


APPENDIX. 


335 


tion of lands. The tenants held their lands tramelled with condi¬ 
tions as rigid and illiberal as the villeins of the dark ages; and 
this of course took away all interest of the tenant in the soil, ex¬ 
cepting so far as he could benefit himself.”—Lanman’s Hist, of 
Mich., 30-31. And again he says, as to the earliest settlement at 
Detroit: “In 1749, a number of emigrants were sent out at the ex¬ 
pense of the French government, who were provided with farming 
utensils and all the means necessary to advance a colony. * * 

But no material advantage was gained to the posts on the lakes, 
because there was too little system and energy in the government 
and too little enterprise in the people. Surrounded with streams 
and forests yielding abundance, removed from the settled portion 
of the world, there was but little motive presented to their minds 
for the exertion of energy and ambition.”—Lanman’s Hist. Mich., 
61-62. Here, the abundance of nature and the absence of the 
emulations of civilized life abated the pressure of necessity, and 
the spirit of industry. The wealth engaged in and acquired by 
the fur trade also discouraged the progress of improvement. “The 
principal business of the settlements in Michigan,” says Lanman, 
“ up to the year 1817, was the fur trade ; and the wilderness around, 
instead of revealing its treasures to the substantial labors of agri¬ 
culture, was preserved as a waste for the propagation of wild game 
and the fur-bearing animals.”—Lanman’s Hist. Mich., 183-184. 
But the prediction made by the same author has been already ful¬ 
filled. “Free labor is now here acting on a rich soil, and will al¬ 
ways reap a certain and rich reward. Its solid wealth is locked 
up in the land ; and the plough and the harrow, wielded by vigor¬ 
ous arms, are all that is required to unlock its vaults. The spirit 
that is now acting on this region is the hardy, the practical, the 
utilitarian spirit; which, if it is not destined at present to exhibit 
the most splendid monuments of art, will within the age of him 
who is now living, stretch its fields of wheat from Cincinnati to 
the lakes, chequer the soil with canals and railroads, drain its 
morasses into healthful meadows, mould the oaks of its forests 
and the granite of its hills into enduring forms of architecture. 

* * * Stud its waters with commerce and its inland seas 

with sea-ports.”—Lanman’s Hist. Mich., 329. 

Note 80 . 

They who are endowed with strong, active and disciplined fac¬ 
ulties of memory, and a knowledge of causation and faith, may here- 


336 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


after, as they have in the past, prophecy. And there are memora¬ 
ble prophecies and their fulfillment recorded in secular history, as 
to secular affairs. Note the prediction in last note by Lanman, 
of the then coming destiny of our then Northwest wilderness, 
which is already realized. And John Dixwell, one of the regicides, 
after the failure of the first revolution against the Stuarts, and the 
restoration of Charles II., “ever retained a firm belief that the 
spirit of English liberty would demand a new revolution, which 
was achieved in England a few months before his end.”—2 Ban¬ 
croft’s Hist. U. S., 35-36. And Sir Henry Vane, on the scaffold, 
“ with unbroken trust in providence, w T hile he reminded those about 
him, that he had foretold the dark clouds which were coming 
thicker and thicker for a season,” still declared that it was “most 
clear to the eye of his faith, that a better day would dawn in the 
clouds.”—2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 40. And the poetic language 
of prophecy in regard to America, of the bishop or prelate, George 
Berkely, a ripe and eloquent scholar, divine and metaphysician, 
author of the philosophy that doubted the reality of the material, 
is ever memorable— 

“ In happy climes, the seat of innocence, 

Where nature guides, and virtue rules; 

Where man shall not impose for truth and sense, 

The pedantry of courts and schools: — 

There shall be sung another golden age,— 

The rise of empire, and of arts,— 

The good and great inspiring epic rage— 

The wisest heads and noblest hearts— 

* Not such as Europe breeds in her decay; 

Such as she bred when fresh and young, 

When heavenly flame did animate her clay, 

By future poets shall be sung. 

Westward the star of empire takes its way, 

The four first acts already past, 

A,fifth shall close the drama with the day— 

Time’s noblest offspring is the last. 

And in a land entirely free in all just freedom and self-gov¬ 
erned, what is needed for a full return of the golden age or the ac¬ 
cess of the millenial, but that man be true to himself, to others, 
to God and His inexorable temporal laws, for the actual presence 
of either upon the earth ? And may God inspire every intellectual 
worker to strive to verify the two first and two last couplets of the 
poet’s prophecy, as the remainder has in a great degree been veri¬ 
fied ; and may they utter to mankind, the thoughts that breathe 


APPENDIX. 337 

in words that burn and shine forever, to elevate mankind to that 
high destiny. 

Note 81 . 

Universal history bears testimony to the value of intellect 
thus employed, and the history of the wonderful development 
of this country is among its most striking exemplifications. 

Of the early history of Canada, it is said, that “the Supreme 
Council of Canada was a judicial body ; but when any complex 
question came up before them, they generally required the aid of 
the Jesuits, who were, without exception, gentlemen of extensive 
and accurate knowledge. * * * In making treaties with for¬ 

eign powers and the Indian tribes, the aid of the Jesuits was also 
required, because they were, in most cases, acquainted with the 
topography of the country, the principles of international law and 
they had, moreover, great influence with the Indians. The in¬ 
fluence of the Jesuits breathed through every department of the 
government.’—Lanman’s Hist. Mich., 28. And, wherever a realm 
is wisely ruled, knowledge, virtue, wisdom and intellect, if not on 
the throne, behind the throne, stand greater than the throne itself : 
and it was this superiority of acquired, if not also natural intelli¬ 
gence, that, in an age of general ignorance, thus made the brethren 
of the order of Ignatius Loyola a power everywhere in and out of 
office—and they were not generally officers, except in their own 
order. 

The combined influences of reason, superstition and respect 
for himself, which Tecumseh and his brother Elktawawa, brought 
to bear upon the Indian mind, to drive the Indians of the North¬ 
west into a great confederacy against the Americans, evince the 
superior yet rude intellect of the two chief movers of that conspir¬ 
acy. “ It was affirmed that he, the prophet Elktawawa, had had 
a dream,” says Lanman, “in which he had seen the Great Spirit, 
and that he was made his agent on earth ; that he had been di¬ 
rected to inform the Indians to throw away the arts of civilization 
and to resume the ancient customs of their ancestors. He alleged 
that the Americans had driven the Indians from the sea-coast, and 
wished to push them into the lakes ; that they were to take a stand 
where they were, and drive them to the other side of the Alleghany 
mountains. War belts were circulated along the whole chain of 
tribes of the Northwestern lakes to induce them to join in the 
great Indian confederacy. Knowing the strong influence that he¬ 
reditary rank possesses among the Indians it was also affirmed that 

y 


338 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


the Shawanese were the oldest tribe on earth ; and that all men, 
both Indians and English, sprung from them.”—Lanman’s Hist. 
Mich., 175. 

The intellect that brought Tecumseh into leadership is dis¬ 
played in the same author’s description of Tecumseh : “This war¬ 
rior was remarkable, not only for his courage, but for moral traits 
of character which made him prominent among the savages. There 
is evidence, that during the whole course of the war, he was op¬ 
posed to the savage barbarities which were committed by the In¬ 
dians on their prisoners, and that he disdained those little personal 
adornments which form a striking feature of the Indian taste. His 
form and countenance were of noble cast. About five feet ten 
inches high, he was muscular and agile; and had a dignified ex¬ 
pression of countenance, with an eye like that of an eagle. Like 
Pontiac, he exhibited more of inquisitiveness regarding the customs of 
the whites than is usual with his race. In the battles of Brownstown 
and at the surrender of Detroit, he was conspicuous. As an evi¬ 
dence of his aptness in war, General Brock, before he crossed the 
river at Detroit, consulted Tecumseh as to the character of the 
country which he would be obliged to cross in case he advanced 
further. Tecumseh, stretching a roll of elm bark upon the ground, 
with a stone placed on each corner, etched with his scalping- 
knife, a correct map of the woods, swamps and streams of that por¬ 
tion of Michigan. * * * Although Tecumseh had been in¬ 

vested with the military rank of a Brigadier General in the British 
army, he took no satisfaction in the military tinsel of civilized war¬ 
fare, and he adhered, with undeviating perseverance, to the Indian 
garb. * * * He was naturally of a silent and contemplative 

cast of mind, better suited for the stormy duties of the field than 
the discussions of the council} but, when roused, he could pour 
forth torrents of eloquence. Though he levied large subsidies to 
carry on his operations, it can be truly said to his credit, that he 
preserved but little for himself. He fought, not for profit or gain, 
but for the forests and wigwams which gave him birth, • for the 
rights of his fallen race.”—Lanman’s Hist. Mich., 195-196. 

But intellect has varied fields, and Bancroft’s description of 
Fox, the founder of the Quakers, illustrates its power when di¬ 
rected to religious disputation. “A true witness, writing from 
knowledge and not report, declares that by night and by day, by 
sea and by land, in every emergency of the nearest and most exer¬ 
cising nature, he was always in his place, and always a match for 


APPENDIX. 


339 


every service and occasion. By degrees the hypocrites feared to 
dispute with him, and the simplicity of his principle found such 
ready entrance among the people that the priests trembled and 
scud as he drew near, so that it was a dreadful thing to them, when 
it was told them the man in leathern breeches is come.”—Bancroft’s 
Hist. U. S., 336. 

Fox, the founder of the Quaker sect, was undoubtedly a man 
of intellect, but uncultivated : and the mere dislike of disputation 
would make some people “ scud,” whether the logic was superior 
or inferior, impregnable or not. 

Note 82 . 

But intellect alone, perverted by prejudice or hate, is capable 
of embracing any abuse or error. Correcting an error into which 
a historian had fallen and led subsequent writers, Bancroft says of 
him : “ But Chalmers hated Penn, and recklessly or purposely fal¬ 
sified history. And how hard to destroy an error ! How many 
have copied the statement of Chalmers ! ”—2 Bancroft’s Hist. U. 
S., 309, Note. And so as to histories written by men strongly par- 
tizan, prejudiced or of bitter animosities, even their very facts as 
well as the coloring they give to events, require verification and 
corrections. 

Lanman's description of the character of the Indians, as a 
race, furnishes another illustration of low intelligence combined 
with^dominant evil instincts ; but is too long for these notes. See 
Lanman’s Hist. Mich., 308-310. 

Hull’s loss of opportunity to storm and take the British for¬ 
tress at Malden, and his indecision and facile surrender of Detroit, 
is but another historical illustration of small intellect dominated 
by timidity. 

The arts of weak and scheming politicians and the follies of 
the great in place but weak in mind, honor and integrity, against 
their superiors in intellect and wisdom, find an exemplar in history, 
in the practices against Walpole. “ One Jenkins, who, to the pur¬ 
suits of smuggling had joined maraudings, which might well have 
been treated as acts of piracy, was summoned to the bar of the 
Blouse of Commons to give evidence. The tale which he was dis¬ 
ciplined to tell of the loss of his ears by Spanish cruelty, of dis¬ 
honor offered to the British flag and the British crown, was re¬ 
ceived without distrust. ‘ What were your feelings, when in the 
hands of such barbarians ? ’ was asked by a member as his muti- 


340 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


lated ears were exhibited. ‘ I commended my soul to my God,’ an¬ 
swered the impudent fabler, ‘and my cause to my country.’ ‘We 
have no need of others to enable us to command justice ; the story 
of Jenkins will raise volunteers ! ’ such was the cry of Pulteney, 
resolved to find fault at any rate and embarrass and overthrow the 
administration of Walpole.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 136-137. 
Alike that the character and intelligence of political or partisan 
witnesses demand close scrutiny, and the consistency and proba¬ 
bility of truth in their stories demand careful judgment, should 
have been and be hereafter remembered in our own politics. 

A feeble intellect, under the dominion of any form of bigotry 
is not less imbecile for good, yet dreadful in evil. “ The mon¬ 
arch of Spain,” says Bancroft, “ the victim of bigoted scruples, busy 
in celebrating auto-da-fes and burning heretics, and regarding as 
an affair of state the question who should be revered as the true 
patron saint of his kingdom, was at last roused to angry impatience. 
His complaints when addressed to England were turned aside ; and 
when the Spanish officers showed vigor in maintaining the com¬ 
mercial system of their sovereign, the English merchants resisted 
their interference as the ebullitions of pride and the wanton ag¬ 
gressions of cruelty.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 436. A sufficient 
business for a sovereign or a statesman is the constant practice of 
a close vigilance over the interests and laws of his people and his 
"country. Men engrossed with other and private affairs are not fit 
for statesmanship, however able or learned. 

Note 83. 

“Mind,” says Bancroft, “refuses to rest; and active freedom 
is a necessary condition of intelligent existence.”—2 Bancroft’s 
Hist. U. S., 457. And it never rests, except in the somnolence of 
senility or during hours of sleep; and even then it may fill the 
hours of slumber with pleasant visions or with forms of agony or 
terror. It may be frivolous, visionary and impractically idle for 
all the valuable purposes of life ; but, during waking hours cannot 
be torpid and inert. Man ever thinks to a purpose or to no pur¬ 
pose ! 

Note 84 — Chapter XLI. 

The so-called mercantile system of England, by which she 
sought to monopolize, as against her own colonial subjects, alike 
the business of navigation and of manufacture, and even wool pro¬ 
duction, was an example of the intensest selfishness, well-calcu- 


APPENDIX. 


341 


lated alike to unite all classes in the mother country against the 
colonists, and equally tending to alienate from her and unite 
against her legislative pretensions all the colonies and all classes of 
their people. See 3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., T04-107, Willard’s Rep. 
of America, 162. Such selfishness in private life may gain wealth 
and power; but must equally isolate from love, and debase from 
the real respect of all societies except the venal and dependent; 
and is fruitful of litigations, contests and hates. 

General Monk, afterward Duke of Albemarle, to whom was 
due the restoration of the Stuarts to the throne of England, as de¬ 
scribed by Bancroft, is a type of an utterly selfish and unprincipled 
character, not criminal in a legal sense. “ Originally,” says Ban¬ 
croft, “a soldier of fortune in the army of the royalists, he had de¬ 
serted his party, served against Charles I., and readily offered to 
Cromwell his support. He had no adequate conceptions of the 
nature or the virtue of liberty, was no statesman and was destitute 
of true dignity of character. Incapable of laying among the 
wrecks of the English constitution the foundations of a new con¬ 
stitution of civil liberty, he only took advantage of circumstances 
to make his own fortune, and gratify his vain passion for rank and 
place. He cared nothing for England, he cared only for himself ; 
and therefore he made no terms for his country, but only for him¬ 
self. He was not the cause of the restoration. He did but hold 
the Presbyterians in check, and prodigal of perjuries to the last, 
he prevented the adoption of any treaty or binding compact be¬ 
tween the returning monarch and the people.”—2 Bancroft’s Hist. 
U. S., 28-29. 

And unfortunately both civil and military life has been, in the 
past, full of like adventurers, and probably must be in the future, 
in its high places. 

Do we need an instance of the power of either selfishness or 
of an enlightened self-interest, in moulding, abasing or elevating 
the current of opinion or of principle, we can seek it in our own 
brief historical annals. “ The invisible world,” says Bancroft, be¬ 
gun to be less considered ; men trusted more to observation and 
analysis ; and this philosophy, derived from the senses, was analo¬ 
gous to their civil condition. The people in the charter govern¬ 
ments could hope from England no concession of larger liberties. 
Instead therefore of looking for the reign of absolute right, they 
were led to reverence the forms of their privileges exempt from 
change. We hear no more of the theocracy, where God alone 


342 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


was supreme Law-giver and King; no more of the expected 
triumph of freedom and justice anticipated in the second coming 
of Christ. Liberty in Massachusetts was defended by asserting 
the sancity of compact.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 99. But the 
government of God still went on ; and, through the divine law of 
temporal affairs was preparing the way and generating the dispo¬ 
sitions, conflicts and forces which led through the by-ways of Brit¬ 
ish oppression to liberty, independence and evolution of the radi¬ 
cal principles of freedom and right! 

The biasing or perverting power of self-interest in the in¬ 
troduction of slavery into Georgia, whence it was originally ex¬ 
cluded, appears in the history of that colony. “ Slaves from Africa 
sailed directly for Savannah, and the laws against them were not 
rigidly enforced. Whitfield, who believed that God’s providence 
would certainly make slavery terminate for the advantage of the 
Africans, pleaded before the trustees in its favor, as essential to the 
prosperity of Georgia ; even the poorest people earnestly desired 
the change. The Moravians still expressed regret, moved partly 
by a hatred to oppression, and partly by antipathy to the race of col¬ 
ored men. At last they too began to think that negro slaves might 
be employed in a Christian spirit; and it was agreed that, if the 
negroes are treated in a Christian manner, their change of country 
would prove to them a benefit. A message from Germany served 
to hush their scruples. If you take slaves in faith, and with the 
intent of conducting them to Christ, the action will not be a sin, 
but may prove a benediction.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 448. But 
a good intent cannot sanctify that which is in its very essence a 
wrong. 

The thoroughly selfish, if not false in fact or treacherous, are 
ever in danger of being tempted individually or nationally into 
falsehood and false positions. Of the war undertaken by France, 
in connection with the rival claimants to the throne of Austria, to 
defeat the succession of Maria Theresa, Bancroft says : “ Each of 
his associates in the war claimed the entire Austrian succession ; 
and France, which aimed at its dismemberment, could engage in 
the strife only as the common support of their several unfounded 
pretences to the whole. But individuals who are drawn to each 
other by selfishness only are ever really false. Humanity is the 
same in masses. Louis XV., united his allies by no honest prin¬ 
ciples, by no definite policy ; and was deserted by them, as the sel¬ 
fishness of each could in another manner be better gratified. Thus 


APPENDIX. 


343 


the condition of European politics was that of tangled intrigues.” 
—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 450. A pregnant lesson for states, 
statesmen and individuals ! 

How the self-interest of a little class delayed the settlement of 
Michigan, is stated by Lanman, and it must have operated in a de¬ 
gree elsewhere: “The interior,” says he, “was occupied, for the 
most part by Indians and traders, who had just emerged from a 
struggle with the United States to secure the domain. * * * 

It was for the interest of these traders and Indians to describe the 
country as low, wet and almost submerged by swamps. When an 
occasional party adventured into the forest, their horses sunk deep 
in the mire which abounds along the frontier, and they were in¬ 
duced to return without adventuring further; for their own expe¬ 
rience confirmed the current report. They were not aware of what 
facts have since proved, that the central portion of Michigan 
abounded with a dry, undulating and fertile soil, in every way 
adapted to the purposes of agriculture. Accordingly it was twen¬ 
ty years since believed that what now constitutes the state of 
Michigan was a vast morass, surrounded only by a narrow rim of 
habitable land.”—Lanman’s Hist. Mich., 320. A notable lesson 
against too easy a credulity of the tales of the interested and of 
need of a thorough investigation before abandoning an enterprise! 

Another form of selfishness also procrastinated settlement and 
industries. “ The progress of the country under the French govern¬ 
ment was obstructed,” says Lanman, “ by the fact that this region 
was long under the monopoly of exclusive companies chartered by 
the French crown. The design of these companies, especially the 
governors and intendants, was to enrich themselves by the fur trade ; 
and, accordingly, they had little motive to encourage agriculture or 
general settlement. By their policy, the intendants accumulated 
large fortunes by the trade, while they averted from the observation 
of the French crown the actual condition of the colonies in Canada. 
They much preferred that the French inhabitants should undergo 
the labor of procuring furs, while they might reap the profits, rath¬ 
er than that these tenants should become the free husbandmen of 
a fertile soil.”—Lanman’s Hist. Mich., 62. And so French settle¬ 
ment languished and France lost an empire in the New World—a 
lesson of the duty of vigilance as to agents, that they well dis¬ 
charge their duties ! 

The most unscrupulous selfishness may, and often does assume 
the garb of friendship or generosity, and seeks to bribe good will 


344 


VIA MORALIS VINCENDI. 


or service by gifts. It was a common practice of the French and 
English to seek to win the Indian tribes in this way, and the inor¬ 
dinately selfish are easily so won. “ These tribes,” says Lanman 
of the tribes of the Northwest, and a like policy has at all times 
and is now practiced in the form of annuities, “ had been for a 
long time unfriendly to the French, and the English had exercised 
their policy to strengthen the friendship of the Indians by fre¬ 
quent messages and valuable presents.”—Lanman’s Hist. Mich., 39. 
Such purchased alliance does not deserve the name of friendship— 
it is but an ill compensated servitude, induced by bribe. 

But, on the other hand, industry itself, if not generated, is 
rightly fortified by a just sense of self-interest: and the new im¬ 
pulse given to it by American freedom, is tersely told by Lanman. 
“ More successful in its achievements than the Grecian conqueror, 
American enterprise has here found and is subduing a new world ; 
not by the sword and the bayonet, but with the axe, the plane and 
the plough ; not by the armies and navies of sceptered potentates, 
but by the sober convictions of a free people, the exertions of hardy 
industry and the sanctions of righteous laws.”—Lanman’s Hist. 
Mich., 327. 

Mark the contrast in the progress of colonies where in¬ 
dustry had even a feeble encouragement with those in which it 
was really discouraged. “In 1738,” says Bancroft, “there were 
built in Boston, forty-one topsail vessels, burden in all six thousand 
three hundred and twenty-four tons. In its vicinity, the increase 
of population justified the frequent division of townships ; and the 
husbandmen of West Farms in Connecticut, as if anticipating for 
their posterity a place in the world’s annals, claimed also to be or¬ 
ganized separately as the village of Lexington. Peace on the 
Eastern frontier revived the youthful maritime enterprize of Maine, 
and its settlements began to obtain a fixed prosperity. * * * 

Of Connecticut the swarming population spread over all its soil, 
and occupied even its hills ; for its whole extent was protected 
against the desolating inroads of the savages. The selfish policy 
of its governors and its royalist party delayed the progress of New 
York. Pennsylvania as the land of promise, was still the refuge of 
the oppressed. ‘We shall soon have a German colony,’ wrote 
Logan, ‘ so many thousands of Palatines are already in the colony. 
We are also very much surprised at the vast crowds of people 
pouring in from the North of Ireland.’ Nor did the Southwest 
range of mountains, from the James river to the Potomac, fail to 


APPENDIX. 


345 


be enlivened by emigrants, and enlivened by County Courts, and 
in 1732, the valley of Virginia received white inhabitants; and a 
British poet pointed with admiration across the Atlantic— 

“ Lo ! swarming southward, on rejoicing suns, 

Gay colonies extend,—the calm retreat 
Of undeserved distress, the better home 
Of those whom bigots chase from foreign lands, 

Not built on rapine, servitude and woe, 

But bound by social freedom, firm, they rise ! ” 

How laboriously Benjamin Franklin, the poor printer-boy 
toiled, like many another architect of his own fortune, up to wealth, 
statesmanship, fame, cannot be here omitted. “On the deep foun¬ 
dations of sobriety, frugality and industry, the young journeyman 
built his fortunes and his fame; and he soon came to have a 
printing office of his own. Toiling early and late, with his own 
hands he set type and worked at the press; with his own hands 
would trundle to his office in a wheel-barrow, the reams of paper 
which he was to use. His ingenuity was such, he could form let¬ 
ters, make types and wood-cuts and engrave vignettes in copper. 
The assembly of Pennsylvania respected his merit and chose him 
its printer.”—3 Bancroft’s Hist. U. S., 376. And the first great 
step forward and upward was achieved. 

While facilities of transportation have so multiplied and cheap¬ 
ened, and the work in a single department of an extending news¬ 
paper or other enterprise has so vastly increased that much that 
Franklin did in person, must be done by another than the manager, 
editors or proprietors—yet the enlargement of all business and the 
grandeur of their possibilities has so vastly increased, that an equal 
devotion of time, wit and energy, to that of Franklin, is required 
in every line of business to insure a great success now as it was 
then. 

Note A—Page 122. 

It is the too constant practice of Christians to apply this sen¬ 
tence to the hereafter only. But to the spiritually-minded, the 
voice rings out its sentence for every work well done and the real 
joy of the announcement flows from the Source of all beatitudes in 
Heaven, down into the heart and soul of every contented doer of 
His will on earth, whether the work well done be but an ordinary 
work of earth, a deed of beneficence or an act of righteousness and 
justice. What life, in great or lowly positions, can be more replete 
with the purest and most exalted joys than that which thus can 
and does enter here on earth into the joys of its Lord ? 









GENERAL INDEX. 








































' 

' ' 

















































































GENERAL INDEX 


Abuse of alcoholic liquors and its general cause. 49 

Accidents, moral of, see Moral. 

Accumulation, instinct of, its functions. 179 

“ and saving, the world’s law and God’s. 180 

“ without it man remains crippled for every other duty.. 180 

“ its operation as a ruling passion. 180 

“ supremacy of the instinct an idolatry. 180 

“ activity of instinct of, with intelligence and enterprise 

“ makes rich.,. 180 

“ activity of instinct of, with intelligence and ideality 

makes a patron of the arts. 180 

u see Treasures in Heaven. 

“ with a supremacy of other animal instincts makes the 

reveller and sensualist. 180 

“ with dominant secretiveness and defective conscience 

makes the miser, cheat or criminal.*. 180 

“ combined with moral principles, religion and ideality, 

makes a benefactor of mankind. 180-181 

“ instinct of, God answer not the formal prayer of the 

lips, but the deep, real aspiration of the intelligent 

soul.;. # .. 181 

“ its fruits worshipped by the multitude and the most evi¬ 
dent bases of social distinction. 181 

“ its due and proper manifestation worthy of all honor... 181 

“ the condition of man without it, little better than that of 

a rude, ignorant barbarian.\.. 181 

“ its right operation. 181 

“ waste of property by children, a wrong education. 181 

“ wastes of negligence as criminal as willful wastes. 182 

“ thoughtlessness or forgetfulness no excuse for wastes.. 182 

“ desire to be rich, not to be quenched but ruled. 182 

“ child to be practiced to save and keep. 182 

“ “ to be checked in appropriating, coveting or beg¬ 
ging that which is another’s. 182 

“ question as to ownership of lands. 182 

“ “as to limitation of descendibility of great over¬ 
grown estates... 182 

man must own fruits of his own honest toils. 182 

“ communism and the God-given freedom of nature, con¬ 
ditions of men in. 182-183 

“ basis of the inequalities in the world.. 183 

“ freedom to earn, keep or spend ^.rnings, the wise order 

of nature. 183 

** a duty. 182-184 

“ what kind of communal organizations must be a failure 183-184 

“ has its right sphere of activity. 184 

“ acts rightly when. 184 

































350 


GENERAL INDEX. 


Accumulation, its abuses need to be corrected and how corrected. 184 

“ legal correction of its abuses, Spinosa’s doctrine. 184 

“ see Avarice, -ZEsop’s fable. 

uEsop’s fable of Hercules and the wain-driver. 162 

Affection, see Appetite, Instinct, Psychical Nature of Man, Parent, 

Children, The Sexual Instinct, Family Relation, Attachment... 

Agitation, what needed. 52 

“ what the province of the church. 52 

Agony, mental or psychical. 137-145 

Alcoholic liquors, see Abuse.... 

Amative Instinct, virtuous or vicious, see Sexual Instinct..... 

Ambition, see Aspiration, Self-esteem, Self-respect, Conceit. 

Amendment of Government or Constitutions, see Reform, Governments 

“ of constitutions of Republican governments, how sought 108 

Amusements, to be limited... 52 

Animal instincts, danger of their domination. 24 

Appearances false, educate in vice. 67-68 

Appetites, Affections, Instincts, each declares some co-relative right of 

pursuit, attainment and enjoyment of its just objects.. 141-142 
“ each to be subordinate to dictates of a right conscience, in¬ 
telligence and will, or to religion as expounded by the 

church. 50 

“ whither their excessive indulgence tends. 50 

“ rule of abstinence. 50-51 

Aspirations that endanger men. 45 

“ noble and safe..-. 45 

“ to become as Gods, the sin of Adam and Eve and their pos¬ 
terity. 258 

“ virtuous or vicious. 162 

Associations, bad, remedy for their evils. 143 

“ duty of selecting the best. 71-73 

11 see Instincts social. 

Attachment, men and women rightly judged by their associates. 227 

“ instinct of, must be wisely and conscientiously directed 

and controlled. 227 

“ associations that imply danger or degradation are to be 

broken off in their beginning. 227 

“ its depraved sentiment. 227-228 

“ “ “ action, permanence of. 228 

“ this instinct indicates a home duty. 228-229 

“ grows by contiguity and association. 229 

“ a rule for holding that of the best people. 230 

“ abuses of. 230-231 

" recluses fail to acquire or hold it. 229 

“ vain hunger of the great litterati for it. 229 

“ Christ’s example and the devotion of His disciples.. 229 

“ who achieve it. 229 

“ its instruction to the wise. 229-230 

“ isolation from it makes unhappy. 230 

a bond of brotherhood between benefactor and beneficiary 230 

“ instinct of.. 226-234 

“ function and office of. 22fi 

“ duty of careful selection of associates, especially for the 

young. 226 

“ impossibility of selection in common schools, their chief 

evil. 225 

“ its effect on character. 226-229 

Attainment, way of. 171 

Atheism, Cause of. 123. 

Atheist, wretchedness of his life. 122 

Avarice, defined. 184 

“ the honest and honorable path to great wealth. 184 


















































GENERAL INDEX. 


351 


Avarice, when vicious. Ig 5 

“ enormity of the vices it may prompt. 185 

“ its proper training in childhood...’ 185 

Avocation, duty of constant, exhaustive study of. 83 

duty of seeking capital for. 83 

duty of its practice and manner of practice.. 83 

“ failure in causes of. 86 

duty to the public in. 87 

“ of employers to employees in... 87 

see Business, Business Duties, Employers, Employees, In¬ 
feriors, Masters, Occupation, Servants. 

B. 

Bad, see Ignorance. 

Beings created, subject to the law of their creation or constitution.... 18 

Beauty, neutral, evanescent, or positive and perrennial.-.... 237 

Book, design of. yi 

“ fundamental theory of. YU 

“ object of. yil 

Books, worthy of study. 244 

Benevolence, an instinct, beneficence a duty. 112-120 

“ sentiment of. 113 

“ a blind instinct. 113 

“ prompter of vice and prodigality. 113. 

“ its duty world-wide. 112 

“ as to the hereafter or eternity. 112-113 

“ limits of this duty.*.. 112 

true sphere and office of its charity. 114-117 

“ when its charity debases its recipient. 114-115 . 

“ its sphere and when vicious. 115-118 

“ duty of, what it exacts. 115 

when and how beneficence is a duty even of the poorest 115-116 

“ true charity begins, but ends not at home. 116-117 

“ is the light and life of the home. 116-117 

“ is the purest and most unselfish of motives. 117 

“ is the source of the highest joy. 119-120 

“ is the only real expression of gratitude to God. 117 

Business duties. 80-87 

“ man providentially compelled to activity in some line of..... 80 

“ motives to industry and skill in, manifold. 80-81 

“ duty of integrity in, how only its discharge is assured. 86 

“ successful, chief impediment to. 207 

“ unfit to be followed by hiring help.. 142- 

“ see associations bad, Idle, Man, Industry or Diligence, Mo¬ 
tives, Invention, Occupation, Avocation, Fraud. 

“ the Nirvana of the Buddhists is death not life. 81 

“ activity, sphere of, indicated by nature modified by use or 

misuse of opportunity. 81 

u avocations indicated by the genius of the youth. 81 

“ course when not so indicated. 81 

“ parents duty in guiding the child to. 81 

“ “ “ of selection of. 81 

u not to be adopted from caprice. 81 

“ to be chosen according to fitness, capacity and aspirations, 

not the latter only. 81-82 

“ useful, are all honorable. 81-82 

“ success or failure in, depends on fitness. 82 

“ conditions of excellence in. 82 

u without daily practice in, man cannot exist. 82 

“ can acquire aught only through debasement and dishonor... 82 

u each demands different qualifications of skill, and lovers of 

ease fall into the less skilled. 83 . 






















































GENERAL INDEX. 


352 


Business, success in, measure of, on what dependent. 83 

“ a growth. 84 

“ see Timeliness, Time, use and economy of. 

“ man's duty as conductor of large enterprises... - 84-85 

“ every new relation in, brings to man new duties. 85 

“ fitting child for one, a great good. 242 

“ children, their special duties. 76-79 

C. 

Candor, or its affectation. 226 

Causation, faculty of knowledge of, see judgment.. 

Celibacy, causes of to be guarded against. 54 

Chapters, Index to. III-IY 

Character, pleasing to God. -. -. 34 

“ a growth and real, not a mask. 68 

“ influence of the parents' on the child. 68 

u . becomes fixed and unchangeable at some time. 68 

Children, their special duties. 76-79 

“ duties as to their education. 70 

“ most fundamental of all lessons that he has a mission depend¬ 
ent on present improvement. 71 

“ duty to use all possible diligence to warn and inform faculty 71 

“ to see and seize opportunity for highest work, and preparation 

for. 71-72 

“ education, a mainspring of right education, etc. 71 

“ wisdom and knowledge to be acquired and assimilated by.. 77 

“ untractable and indocile must be relatively ignorant and in¬ 
capable . 77 

“ character pleasing to God. 34 

“ wisely born dependent on the mature, and why. 77 

“ docility their first and most fundamental virtue. 77 

“ the instinct of parental love assures fidelity in precept and 

counsel to them.. 77 

“ that parental love demands in return from the child, the du¬ 
ties of docility and practice of precept. . 78 

“ their waywardness repels the benevolent and good. 78 

11 rewards of their docility. . 78 

u what lessons to be incorporated by them into their own men¬ 
tal constitution and practiced. 78 

“ duty of reverential demeanor and manifestations of honor to 

whom. 78 

“ life-long respect and gratitude due parents and the aged_ 78-79 

“ instinct of love of. 54-55 

“ its influence on the wise. 55 

“ not left dependent only on sense of duty of the parent, but 

protected by a special instinct. 231 

“ love of has its just and virtuous or its inordinate, wrong and 

vicious activity. 231 

“ love of, duties indicated by this instinct. 232 

“ “ “ idle or vicious abuse of it. 232 

“ the most beneficient discharge of parental duty lies in the 
right discipline of faculty and just lessons of self-knowl¬ 
edge, self-denial and self-control. 232 

“ love of, the instinct, function and office. 231 

“ “ “ has a higher rational office than in animals. 233 

“ “ indicates that every human being is designed for 

parentage and its duties. .. 233 

“ parent’s implicit faith in his children and its consequence... 233 

u their government in the schools demands punishments... 234 

“ advantages of the early discipline of the intellect. 234 

“ see Contention, Business, Higher Life, School, Reading, 

Education. 













































GENERAL INDEX. 


353 

Children, duties of. 76 

must develop according to laws of corporal, mental, moral 

and spiritual organization. 77-79 

special duties as such. 76 

“ improvement of. 32 

“ training of. 33-34 

Child’s prattle, when a valuable training. 246 

“ habits of reverie and their consequence.246-247 

Christ, see Salvation. 

Christian, God-revering dare not idly ask miraculously intervention... 163 

Church, alone, except the family, or home, the training school of the 

spiritual nature of man.146, 147 

u see Home. 

“ must be the spiritual and moral instructor of the poor. 125 

Citizens, duty of. 98-111 

“ three classes of meritorious. 98 

“ see Patriotism, .Governments, Legislative, Executive. 

“ primary duty is to guard against perversion or usurpation by 

governments. 101 

“ duty of vigilance. 102-103 

“ “ to attend caucuses and conventions. 102 

“ good, who cannot be. 102 

“ higher duty of some is to inform and correct others—this the 

special duty of the press.. 104 

“ who, as toilers in the field of politics, alone deserve political 

rewards. 104 

u tests of fitness of for office. 104 

u duty to recognize and study the genius of the people to be 

governed. 105 

“ duty to train their children and how. 105 

11 u to respect all laws and lawful authority and obey them 

until lawfully changed. 105 

11 duty to understand and remember the vital principles under¬ 
lying his own government.. 106 

“ duty of reform. 106 

“ see Amendment. 

“ duty to defend, maintain and preserve government. 106-107 

“ tests of fitness for self government. 107 

“ duty of loyalty and obedience limited to constitutional acts 
and enactments of either department or form of govern¬ 
ment. 108 

“ duty in war.. v . 109-110 

“ true equality of the citizens. 110-111 

Civilization, high, punctuality and timeliness is characteristic of. 93 

Classification of duties, virtues, vices, genera, classes and species... .12-15, VII 

“ moral of mankind. 27 

Combat, instinct of... 203-211 

“ function of. 203-204 

“ bravery defined. 203 

“ is the champion of all right. 203 

“ is the instinct of self-defence. 203 

“ its inordinate or vicious action. 206-207 

“ needs guidance or principles of action or inaction.. 204 

“ effects of its inertia or feebleness. 204, 207 

“ when its action is requisite. 204, 206 

“ required in every avocation of life. 204 

“ an essential element in a great character. 203-204 

“ its higher work before and through the law, or where 

the law affords no remedy without the mu¬ 
nicipal law. 204 

“ is essential to a firm, upright and effectively relig¬ 
ious character. 204-205 

“ when it becomes a nuisance. 205-206 

W 

















































354 


GENERAL INDEX. 


Combat, instinct of is the spirit of victory. 205 

“ in a worthy cause scorns surrender. 205 

“ in what professions necessary. 205 

“ in whom it exists in force. 205 

“ difficulty, menace and danger intensify its activity. 205 

“ advances, step by step, for years or centuries. 205-206 

11 when it yields the combat. 206 

“ its rewards, when seemingly uncompensated. 206 

" never to be suppressed, but guided from infancy.. 206 

11 logomachies and petty contentions unworthy of it. 206 

“ its sphere and duties implied by its existence. 206 

“ where and when offensive....,. 206 

w its office man ward. 206 

“ rashness defined. 206 

“ u its effects. 207-208 

il heroism of high courage. 207 

“ is the backbone of every other virtue. 207 

11 courage of the bravo or boaster. 207 

“ lack of it breeds cowardice or imbecility, its effects 207 

“ needs guidance of the higher instincts. 208 

“ see virtue. 

“ its perversion a vice. 208 

“ courage is human, rational or brutal, need of for¬ 
mer only. 209 

“ an impulse, its era passed. 209 

Combatants for truth, country [safe having such statesmen, but not 

otherwise. 209-210 

Combativeness, rational, all ages have need of it. . 209 

“ magnanimous. 210 

“ parental duty not to suppress but to direct aright. 210 

Combative spirit, see Contention. 

“ the spirit of prophets, martyrs, statesmen, militants, sages 

and all who proclaim or inculcate unpopular truths... 209 

“ words tend to beget like deeds. 209 

Communism, see Accumulation. 

Complaints of the undisciplined and uninformed vain. 94-95 

Comstock, Hon. George F. Y 

Conceit, insubordination, result of. 241 

Congress, its function. 101 

“ see Legislative department, Force. 

Conscience, see Faith, Yeneration, instincts of. 

instinct of, with intelligence must be supreme. 46 

“ an instinct to be guided by reason. 46 

“ function and office of, to create a desire to do right.47, 125-135 

“ training of. 47 

“ imbecility of. 47 

or the instinct that prompts to knowledge and practice of 

right and justice... 125-134 

“ must be enlightened and how. 125 

" the church must be, as to duties, the special instructor of 

the poor. 125 

“ common duties. 125 

“ higher duties . 125-129 

real justice. 125-127 

. “ the vice of injustice. 128 

“ justice the grandest of the virtues. 128 

true justice is the soul of true humility. 128 

“ duty of its practice. 128 

“ its duties founded upon the like constitution of 

mankind. 129 

its existence implies a duty to know and do the right. 129 

its implied duties attend man everywhere. 129 





















































GENERAL INDEX. 355 

Conscience, its existence implies man's duty to learn, know and do the 

right. 129 

is a very fallible guide without a basis in right principle or 

revelation. 130 

“ see Duties. 

“ may beget the vices of superstition or intolerance. 130 

Contentment, duties of, in the common offices of life. 

Contention, spirit of, must not haunt the home. 63 

“ “ is that of alienation. 63 

“ “ is forerunner of hatred. 63 

see Discord, Jealousy, Anger, Resentment, Hate. 

“ lowers respect of children for parents. 63 

“ or is copied by children. 63 

makes home a hell of discordant hates. 63 

fault of is usually shared by both. 63-64 

“ spirit of, effect of a s<fft answer upon. 64 

“ is in the home, evidence of an evil spirit. 64 

Contents, by chapters. III-IY 

Created beings and things subject to divine laws of their constitution.. 10 

Credit or trust, true basis of. 91 


D. 

Danger, of the domination of the animal instincts. 24 

Dedication to the Honorable George F. Comstock.s. Y 

Definitions, see Law, Moral Law, Motive, Fraud, Avarice, Combat 

spirit of, Rashness, Fear rational, Temperance. 

Dependents, duties of as such. 76-80 

“ see Children, Inferiors, Servants. 

“ duty to inform and suggest modestly. 79 

“ “ of, to earn their wages. 80 

“ their interest identified with that of their superiors. 80 

Dependence, duty of, avoidance of.. 76 

Depravity, man's, in what it consists.. 24 

“ redemption from. 24 

“ may be brilliant aDd seductive or disgusting only. 135 

Design of this work. YI 

Destiny, life-long of all, useful studies and the pursuit of useful knowl¬ 
edge and wisdom. 240 

“ earthly of man, an intense and varied activity.140, 175 

“ man incapable of his highest happiness otherwise. 175 

“ “ predestined through his own fulfillment or negligent, will¬ 
ful or ignorant violation of his duties.•. 133 

“ see Fear, Parents, Business, Lovers of Base. 

11 of man, that of endless progress towards perfection. 133-134 

“ man, by the law of his nature, predestined to weal or woe 

through his own voluntary or impulsive acts... 159 

“ predestined to spheres of work according to fitness. 162-163 

u “ to endless progress toward perfection or perdition 133-134 

“ “ to subjection to the divine law or to its penalties. 50 

“ t “ to voluntary or compulsory service by work. 80,159 

“ ' “ only through a common or universal divine law and 

his own free choice.158, 161 

“ inevitable and evitable. 259-264 

“ service, voluntary or involuntary to God and his fel¬ 
low man, through earthly work... 259 

“ right or wrong activities his only choice. 259 

11 predestined to bliss or woe according to such choice... 133, 259 

“ subjection to the wise laws of his corporal and psychical being 

or the penalties of ignoring and violating them inevitable, 259 
“ predestined according to wisdom and excellence or inferiority 

of his service.-. 259, 263 















































356 


GENERAL INDEX. 


Destiny, predestined to walk in the paths that lead to felicity here and 

hereafter, or the reverse, and free to choose either. 263-264 

“ may the reader of this book be guided to choose the former 

paths. 264 

Diligence and skill in business a fundamental virtue. 18-19 

“ “ “ “ only bring wealth. 18-19 

“ (t their excessive devotion to gain antagonistic to oth¬ 
er virtues and worship. 19 

“ required in what. 34 

u duty of. 28-35 

“ see Time, Toil. 

Discipline, character of required for man. 35 

“ object of. 19 

“ result of omission of. 19 

“ of church members or ministers. 52 

Dissolute and idle, misery of. j. 28 

“ “ “ God’s earth no place for. 28 

Duties of, two classes. 12 

“ negative. 12 

“ positive. 12-13 

“ their genera triune. 13 

“ intellectual, animal or instinctive, moral and religious or spiritual 13 

their species defined. 14 

“ their genera defined. 14 

“ of knowledge and practice of. 14-15 

“ earthly. 25 

“ heavenly. 25 

“ of order, method and system. 28 

“ of practice, see Practice. 

‘ 1 precedent and consequent to marriage. 55 

“ preliminary to. 55-56 

“ attendant on marriage . 56-60 

“ of system, order and timeliness. 57 

“ of man, as husband and father, his office. 57-59 

“ “ “ “ “ excuses no substitute for fulfill¬ 


ment of them. . 58-59 

u of self-reliance, support and independence. 59-60 

“ as educators and trainers. 61 

u as high priest and priestess of altars of home. 61 

11 in the social relation.61-73-76 

“ of relations of children, inferiors, dependents or employees. 76-79 

u obligatory and all to be practiced as God-ordained. 132 

“ man has a fate or destiny through his fulfillment or his ignorant, 
negligent or willful violation of divine law or duty indicated 

in his own nature. 133 

u incident to sexual love and the family relation. 53-66 

4 ‘ indicated by the religious faculties and instincts. 120-124 

“ common. 125 

“ higher. 125-129 

“ see Justice, Obedience, Marriage. 

“ founded in like constitution of mankind. 129 

“ attend man everywhere. 129 

“ to be studied in the nature and constitution of man and his rela¬ 
tions . Till 

“ see Law. 

“ of economy and improvement of time. 15 

“ see Family, Neighbor, Parent, Children, Employer, Employee, 


Duty of knowing and practicing duties. 14-15 

“ economy and improvement of time.14, 15, 15-23 

u of children, dependents, inferiors and employees. 77 

“ to one’s self.17, 45-53, 252 






















































GENERAL INDEX, 


357 


Duty, see Fame, Timeliness, Limitation, Contentment, Heredity. 

“ of economy. 21 

“ fulfillment of, in morals. 12 

“ consequences of neglect of. 12 

“ of order, method and system.].. 28 

“ to educational institutions. 39 

u “ see Scholarships. 

“ to make no false assumptions that children discharge duty and 

do right. 61 

“ consequences of such false assumptions... 61 

“ of mutual confidence and counsel within the family. 61-62 

“ of banishing contention from the home. 62 

“ of persuasion, forbearance and forgiveness in married life. 63-64 

“ votary of, what diligence required for. 40 

“ three fundamental rules or tests of.41, 45 , 158 

“ fourth primary rule of. 45 

“ of temperance or moderation. 45-53 

“ divine like man’s nature. 46 

“ of knowledge and domestic practice of physiology and hygiene.. 46 

“ of restraint of instinct and affection.46, 134-136 

“ of vigilant enlightenment and exercise of conscience. 46 

“ not to be ruled by appetite, impulse, desire or instinct. 46 

“ of husband and wife, the educative relations. 64-73 

“ two-fold, education of self and others. 66 

“ “ “ as educators, never finished. 66 

“ of integrity, how only its discharge is assured. 86 

“ low idea of, a just cause of discredit. 93 

“ of completing each day its proper work. 96 

“ of the citizen. 98-111 

“ of man to man everywhere, of beneficence. 112-120 

“ at home. 114 

“ world-wide. 112 

“ range and extent of. 130 

“ its limit. 112 

“ every new enterprize, relation or possession brings in new duties 132 

“ horrors perpetrated in the name of. 130 

“ man cannot fly from.•.. 130-132 

“ of repose. 131 

“ the summons to, whence. 131 

“ every instinct, affection, faculty, indicates a duty. 132 

' m “ every property or possession brings or indicates a duty. 132 

“ riches and servants bring added cares and responsibilities. 132 

“ to he learned and carefully judged by one’s own consciousness, 

experience and reason. 132 

“ to be practiced as God-ordained. 132 

“ man has a fate or destiny through fulfillment or ignorant or will¬ 
ful violation of. 133 

“ of limitation of instinct, &c., within right sphere of function and 

its law. 134-136 

“ of improvement of God’s gifts, parable of the ten talents teaches 140 

“ of practice and discipline of affection and faculty. 145-148 

“ of conscientiousness, right and justice, its universality. 124-134 

“ arising out of propensities, affections, instincts, their sphere, limit¬ 
ations and objects. 134-136 

“ of obedience to their laws and limitations, and its rewards and 

penalties of disobedience, the beneficence of God. 137-145 

“ of contentment with the common offices of life. 144-145 

“ of practice and discipline of affection and faculty. 145 

“ “ of frugality, industry, vigilance and skill. 39 

“ of self-knowledge and self-culture. 35-37 

“ of the support of institutions. 37-41 

“ fundamental rules and tests of. 41-45 























































358 


GENERAL INDEX. 


Duty, in the educational relations.* 66-73 

“ see Education and Educator.. 

“ of children, dependents, inferiors and employees. 76-80 

“ of timeliness. 87-96 

“ to neighbor and neighborhood. 97-98 

“ to learn from parents, see Fear, Combativeness, Waywardness.. 

11 of employer in business. 80-87 

“ discharge of, not only obligatory, but refining and subliming.... 237 

“ to fit one’s self for some work or a higher one. 163 

“ of pursuit, attainment and enjoyment of its proper object, attends 

every instinct, affection and faculty. 175 

“ of beneficence, a duty to man everywhere. 120-124 

“ arising from the possession of intellect. 235-248 

“ of observation, perception, intuition, memory, reasoning and 

reading. 248 

“ arising out of the judgment and faculty of the knowledge of caus¬ 
ation and relation. 248-252 

li of vigilant ward over the passions and study of their sphere and 

limitations. 257-258 


E. 

Ease, destiny of lovers of, see Business. 

Economy of time, see Time, Official high, Duty, Error criminal. 

“ duty of. 21 

Education, fitness through it to see and seize opportunities. 19 

“ in business without moral education, effects of. 40 

“ never finished. 66 

<l life a training school toward perfection. 66 

u parents need to educate a child. 66 

“ constantly proceeding with or without tuition. 66 

“ precept without practice of little worth in. 66 

“ beginning of spontaneous. 66 

“ by imitative reprod action. 66 

“ duty two-fold, of self and another or others. 66 

“ daily, temper how trained. 67 

“ elders judged by the children. 67 

“ false appearances edueate in vice. 67-68 

“ see Character, Rule of life. 

“ parents’ retrospection as to causes of child’s character. 68 

“ tuition and precept, how soon due the child. 68 

“ one rule of life better than negative commands. 68 

“ benefits of the schools depend on home training. 68-74 

“ is primarily the duty of parents. 69 

“ other teachers but stand in the place of the parents, without 

their influence and power. 69 

“ - proper rest of faculties during. 70 

“ with faculty and instinct, the mainspring of every aspiration, 

study, endeavor and deed. 71 

“ see Self Education, Life, Child or Children. 

11 duty of making the most of opportunity for. 71 

“ “ selection of school associates. 71,73 

u “ improving, elevating and informing the moral and re¬ 
ligious instincts. 71 

“ God’s call to self-culture is in every opportunity. ... 72 

“ parents’ duty to train specially certain instincts. 72-73 

“ duty of mutual improvement. 73 

“ “ “ quickening preliminary studies. 83 

“ school or academic, extent of dependent upon parents’ means 

and family needs. 83 

parents’ duty to enter child .under suitable business master. 83 

" of earliest years, parents’. 66 

“ for highest work and sphere of usefulness. 71 




















































GENERAL INDEX. 


359 


Educational, see Institutions, Schools, Press, Life.. 

“ institutions.. * ] ’ 37-38 

“ “ duty to use their advantages. 39 

what combine to create large-hearted,God-fear¬ 
ing men. 40 

see Associates, Associations, Parents. 

opportunities, how wasted. 70 

folly of parents. 70 

right general culture a duty. 70 

parents must be exemplars. 70 

“ duty of child. 70 

child must daily be taught that he has an inevitable, 
God-ordained mission on earth, the character of which 
depends on improvement or neglect of endowments 

and opportunities. 71 

duty to use all possible diligence to train and inform fac¬ 
ulties. 71 

duty of child to be in readiness to seize every opportunitv 71 

duty of parents, when it begins.. 243 

faculties, see Intellect, Perception, Judgment. 

Educator, mother when the principal. 66 

Elijah at Mount Carmel. 163 

Employees, see duty... . 

“ duties of. 76 

Employers’ duty to employee of adequate compensation. 142 

Enjoyments, when virtuous or vicious. 49 

“ excess immoral. 50 

“ “ penalties of. 95 

“ how limited. 94 

“ and self denials limited. 96 

“ times for. 96 

“ when no wrong, but a duty. 252 

“ see Pleasure, Happiness, Felicity. 

Equal right, that of pursuit, attainment and enjoyment for all. 139 

Equality, the equal right to opinion, taste, creed, plan, mode or kind of 

action or pursuit and its limitation...... 221 

“ true. 110-111 

“ see Progress and Retrogression. 

Error, criminal,. 21 

u what criminal. 17 

Evolution but a new name for progress under divine law. 9,10 

Example, see Tices, Officials high. 

Excess, immoral. 50 

“ see Enjoyment. 

Excuses, that do not wrong others, wrong ourselves. 48 

Executive department, functions of. 102 

“ “ duty of enforcement of laws. 102 

“ “ its weakness, consequence of. 102 

“ “ has a veto on legislation.*... 

F. 


Faculty and instinct only need to be and can be controlled aright. 

“ see Intellect, Observation, Perception, Memory, Judgment, In¬ 
tuition or Consciousness, Love of the wonderful or In¬ 
stinct of Wonder... 

Fallibility of man.'. 

Fame, what is it. 

“ its value. 

Fear, irrational, a breeder of superstition. 

“ the opposite of spirit of enterprize. 

“ of God, the beginning of wisdom, in terrestrial affairs and celestial 
i( impels to knowledge of the laws of time and eternity. 


43 


46-47 

174 

174 

200 

200 

200 

201 




















































360 


GENERAL INDEX. 


Fear, vain and cowardly, when only. 201 

“ what the presence of danger requires. 202 

“ its most common vice. 202 

“ duty implied by its existence. 202 

“ instinct of. 196-202 

“ its functions. . 196-197, 200, 202 

“ excessive, incapables made by. 196 

“ its virtuous activity is prudence or discretion.197-198, 201 

“ its vicious inertia breeds rashness. 

“ virtuous function. 197, 200 

“ vicious action. 198-199 

“ its comical aspect. 197 

“ its vicious inertia or excess alike lead to failure. 197 

** see God’s law, Prudence, World. 

“ enhances wisdom.198, 200-201 

“ destiny of the viciously timid. 199-200 

“ duty of youth to learn from parents.. 198 

“ destiny of the vigilant. 198 

“ “ of the rash. 198 

“ rational defined, and its operation. 198 

“ “ consistent with the highest rational courage. 198 

“ idle boast of the bravo or charlatan. 198 

“ its highest sphere of activity is God-ward, in leading to study of 
and obedience to His laws and government and a knowledge 

of man’s duty and destiny. 199, 200 

“ skeptics perverted. 199 

“ rational, of God, to what it prompts. 199 

Federal government, see government federal or United States. 

Felicity, see Happiness. 

“ the most perfect spiritual work and the most perfect service 

on God’s terrestrial work, command the highest and purest 261 

Firmness, fortitude and perseverance or waywardness and obstinacy.. 211-216 

“ see Waywardness, Fortitude. 

li may exist with or without the combative or resentful instincts 

or either of them... 211 

“ gives perseverance, persistance, and pertinacity in either 

right or wrong, follies and irregularities. 221 

“ when it is vicious. 211 

“ “ virtuous it aids to sustain burdens of toil, <fcc. 211 

“ without its inspiration man can accomplish little. 211 

“ they who crave life’s successes must cultivate this virtue.... 211 

“ fortitude or perseverance, rationale of.. 211-212 

11 “ essential to virtue or §table Christian character. 212 

“ “ its education. 212 

11 “ waywardness, obstinacy, self-will, its correlative 

vices, how trained. 212 

“ see Waywardness. 

“ may beget obstinate self-indulgence or heroic self-sacrifice.. 214 

“ necessary to the true Christian sacrifice, constancy in obedi¬ 
ence to God and His laws. 214 

First cause, see God. 

Flattery, dangerous. 224-225 

“ see Praise. 

Force, its use against the people when criminal. 105-106 

“ right of the people against misuse of. 106 

Fortitude. 211-214 

“ essential to the hero of common life who would live according 

to his conscience and ability.... 213 

“ without it conscience and the spiritual instincts become unsta¬ 
ble. 212 

“ characteristic of martyrs and all who have stable virtues. 213 

“ elemental in the Puritan character. 213 



















































GENERAL INDEX. 


361 


Fortitude, to be exercised in the spheres of common life and its ordinary 


occasions. 213 

“ so fits men for the needs of great occasions. 213 

“ forms the hero fitted for great occasions. 213-214 

Fraud defined. 85-86 

Free-will, see World. 

Friendship, see Attachment. 

Fundamental theory of this work. YII 

“ principal of morals, a divine, conservative Law-giver_ 9 

“ law of morals is temperance or moderation. 49 


G. 


Genius and true greatness, the former born, the latter a growth. 166 

God, see Law-giver, Law, Fear, Instinct of destruction. 

“ unchangeable. 9 

“ gave laws of man's constitution. 9, 10 

“ by conformity to His psychical laws and laws of relation, man as¬ 
sures his successes and happiness; by violation of them de¬ 
rogates from his own and his associates' prosperity and felicity 10 

“ his law constant and unchanging. 9-11 

“ belief in, universal. 9,16 

“ evolution but a new name for operation of his laws. 9-10 

“ eqidence of his wisdom and beneficence.17,137-145 

“ offence to. 25 

“ character of man pleasing to. 34 

“ governs by law and not bv caprice or miracle. 139 

“ parable of ten talents teaches dutv of improvement and use of His 

gifts. 140 

“ not the author of grief and pain. 143 

“ that earthly lives and joys are not eternal, no impeachment of the 

divine justice and benevolence. 144 

“ the divine Ruler, no right theory of morals not based on Him and 

His immutable laws. 158 

“ His rule not capricious. 162 

u everywhere. 162 

“ ever working in the soul that ignores Him not both to will and do 162 

“ His great designs, human instruments for. 165 

“ and His providence. 158-169 

“ His most valuable gifts to man. 172 

“ His benevolence displayed in the human constitution. 176 

“ His law of transmutation of vice into virtue in and through the 

common works of life. 197 

“ see Fear, Instinct of Destruction, Grief, Pain. 

“ His wisdom displayed in the psychical constitution of man. 257 

“ among His wisest and best earthly ordinances is the compulsion 

of man to labor for every gratification. 259 

“ rewards those, who furnish work to His less capable children, how 261 

“ has two kinds of work for all, earthly work and work spiritual and 

divine. 262 

Gossip and scandal, distasteful, when and to whom. 241 

Governments, can rise no higher than their source... 39 

“ must be, in their rightful sphere, obeyed. 39 

“ necessity and objects of.. 100 

“ in three departments, executive, legislative and judicial. 100 

“ state, and federal or national. 100-101 

“ see State, Federal. 

“ citizens' primary duty to guard from usurpation and per¬ 
version. 101 

“ legislative, its functions. 101 

“ “ action forecloses private judgment, except 

for appeal and repeal. 101 

“ citizens duty to submit to. 101 














































362 


GENERAL INDEX. 


Governments, disobedience or contempt of, breeds anarchy. 101 

“ sphere of the higher law of morals or duty in. 101 

“ sources of corruption in. 101-102 

“ the perpetuity of good, needs moral training in children. 102 

“ executive department, function of. 102 

“ see Executive, Legislative, Judicial, Congress, Self-gov- 

ment.. 

u popular, when superceded. 102 

“ good only when well administered, whatever their form. 104 

“ need moral training of the citizen. 102 

11 each form practically adapted to the condition of a people 104-105 

“ its true sphere and duty to maintain and defend the equal 

rights of all.. . . 105 

“ use of force against the people by, when criminal. 105-106 

“ reform of, methods to be followed. 107 

“ “ right to agitate. 107 

“ see Force, Statesmen, Republic. 

“ republican, conservatism duty of, in regard to. 107 

“ 11 its powers, conditions of limitation or enlarge¬ 
ment of. 107 

“ consolidation of powers constitutes despotism in fact un¬ 
der whatever form. 106-107 

“ United States, limitation of powers. 108 

“ state, constitutional powers of. 108 

“ federal, “ “ ..>. 108 

“ “ reason of limitation. 109 

“ divine, see God, Law, Miracle. 

Great, haste to be in place, sign of an incapable spirit. 164 

“ one may, in place, wrongly become. 44 

11 or rich, how rightly to become. 44 

Grief, pain and mental agony. 137-145 

“ and pain possible to be avoided. 143 

“ “ enduring, on what dependent. 142 

“ various as man's manifold desires, mistaken association 

and ignorant or willful violations of divine law. 142-143 

“ and pain, God not the author of. 143 


H. 

Happiness, theories of. 169 

“ “ none wholly erroneous. 169 

“ err when only exclusive and hostile. 169 

“ the sum of all attainable. 169-171 

“ the one great foe to unhappiness. 171-172 

“ who hold fast to no stable anchor of. 172 

“ see Loneliness, Unhappiness, Felicity, Pleasure. 

tl who is assured of..". 172-174 

u distributed impartially, according to desert. 173 

“ divine law of. 138 

“ see Enjoyments, Instincts, Activity, Conscience, Religious 


Heaven begins on earth. 156-157 

“ the final rest or true Nirvana. 157 

“ who cannot enter. 199 

“ see Treasures in. 

Hercules and the wain-driver, see JEsop's fable of. 

Hero-worship, dangerous. 108 


through it, mankind are masters of their own destiny 

and that of the race... 256 

of, mankind can become perfect in their kind, only 
through effort of each member of each generation to be 
perfect. 256 


















































GENERAL INDEX. 


363 


Heredity, law of, duty of a proper contemplation of this law and its 

effects. 256-257 

Higher law or moral of duty, its sphere in governments is to mould 

legislation. 101 

Home, church, Sunday schools, university, business schools combine to 

make the highest order of men. 40 

“ its lights and bliss. 54-55 

Homeless, why. 179 

Honesty, its pretence does not excuse malice or indecency. 2 

Husband and wife, its relation the most sacred of the earthly. 33 

the relation is an ordinance of God. 53-66 

“ its duties. 53 

see Parents, Marriage, Education, Educator. 

duty to guard their own and children’s health. 52 

*• in the educational relations. 67-73 


I. 


' Idle, God’s earth has no place for. 28, 80 

“ and dissolute, misery of. 28 

Idolatry of instinct or desire.138, 48-49 

Ignorance itself, when vice or sin. 14 

and sin or vice, afflict with debility, decrepitude, disease and 

death of soul or its faculties... 11 

“ itself, the misfortune or fault of the bad. 38-39 

Immortality of man’s soul, faith in. 168-169 

Immortals, good and bad can not consort together. 16-17 

“ spirits, how fitted for bliss. 16 

Index to chapters. Ill, IY 

“ “ see preface to notes. 

Inertia of moral and religious instincts. 159 

Inferiors, duties of. 76 

Injustice, vicious. 128 

Instinct of destruction or anger, its operation in the world through fixed 

laws and human agency. 218-219 

“ of destruction, its sphere in man, manward. 219-221 

“ “ its afiuses in man. 220-221 

“ “ the cause, but without justification of persecu¬ 
tion and prosecutions. 221 

“ of destruction, its vicious manifestation. 221-222 

“ “ preliminaries to a virtuous manifestation man- 


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a 


a 


ward. 221-222 

affections, appetites, animal, may act rightly or wrongly. 22 

“ t( per se, in their right sphere and limita¬ 
tion innocent. 22-24 

affections, appetites, their suppression a sin. 22 

“ “ when right or wrong. 22 

“ “ may be subordinate or supreme... ;... 23 

“ “ animal to be subordinate. 23-24 

of conscience, self-respect, faith and veneration to be supreme 23 

affections, appetites, danger of their domination. 24 

moral and religious, and that of self-respect require special 

training, why. 23, 136 

true question of morals in relation to.. 26 

and faculty only need to be and can be controlled aright. 43 

crave without limit. 48-49 

excesses of, that do not wrong others, wrong ourselves. 48 

idolatry of. 48-49 

fundamental rule of temperance in their indulgence.. 48-49 

not to be indulged to our own or others’ injury and are not to 

be indulged so as to starve another instinct or faculty. 49 

affections, passions, appetites, and their cravings to be subor¬ 
dinate to conscience, intelligence, the divine law, a right 
will or to religion as expounded by the church. 50 


















































364 


GENERAL INDEX. 


Instinct, see Sexual Love, Love of Children or Offspring, Spiritual or 

religious, conscience, Benevolence. 

“ appetite, affection, faculty, aspiration for just object of each 

innocent. 94 

“ appetite, affection, faculty, aspiration, enfeebled by non-use, 
perverted by misuse, or made dominant or diseased by ex¬ 
clusive or excessive exercise. 135 

“ cost to man of being the slave of their impulses or either of 

them. 133 

“ multiply harmlessly the felicities of life. 94 

“ their cravings wisely inhere in man. 94 

“ * affections, appetites, radically the same in all mankind and 

everywhere may be studied. 233 

“ moral and spiritual or religious, their error or excess. 136 

u animal, moral, spiritual and intellectual faculties, each prompt 
to pursuit, attainment and enjoyment of its several appro¬ 
priate objects. 137 

**. animal, moral, spiritual and intellectual faculties, study of dis¬ 
tinguished from practice and discipline of, to right action.. 145, 245 
11 animal, moral, spiritual and intellectual faculties, discipline 

in right practice necessary. 145 

“ does not imply a present right to gratify. 145 

“ man must earn the right of its enjoyment or gratification by 

rightly and diligently laboring for and attaining the means 

to rightly gratify. 150 

“ see Appetite. 

“ and faculties, each may conduct in widely divergent paths... 263 

“ effect of perversion or excess. 175 

“ “ inactivity or enfeeblement. 175 

“ appetite, affection, faculty, their very existence implies for 
each an established constitution, object, function, sphere 

and law of order and limitation for each. 10, 159 

“ man must suffer for violation of law of either. 159 

“ “ by study of and conformity to law of either and its limita¬ 

tions assures his earthly destiny for good and his heavenly 

and heavenward progress. 159 

“ of accumulation, virtuous or vicious. 179-185 

“ “ see Accumulation. 

“ anger or destruction. 216-222 

“ “ necessary to camiverous beings. 216 

“ “ “ put man in harmony with a world in 

which decay, death, decadence and evanescence exist and 

noxious things need to be destroyed. 216 

“ of anger, must be co-eval with the human race. 217 

“ “ operation in the world through fixed laws and human 

agency. 217 

“ of anger, its right sphere.217-218 

u “ Draconian codes and penal and criminal statutes. 217-218 

“ “ right sphere in man and man ward. 219-221 

" “ abuses. 219-221 

“ “ offences capable of exciting divine anger. 218 

“ its vicious manifestation. 221-222 

“ “ the cause, but without justification of persecutions 

and prosecution. 221 

“ of love of commendation. 190-196 

self-esteem, self-respect or ambition. 190-196 

“ fear or caution, vicious or virtuous. 196-202 

“ resistance or combat. 203-211 

“ “ see Combat, Combative. 

“ firmness or fortitude. 211-216 

11 “ see Firmness, Fortitude, Waywardness. 

“ sexual love, see Sexual love, Family relation, Marriage_ 


4 








































GENERAL INDEX. 


365 

Instinct, secretiveness. 222-226 

** see Secretiveness, Cunning. 

“ attachment or friendship. 226-231 

“ “ see Attachment. 

“ love of offspring. 231-236 

u “ see Parents, Children, Love of Offspring... 

the sublime and beautiful. 234-338 

“ “ “ see Sublime. 

Institutions, educational. 37-38 

u u duty to use their advantages. 37-38 

“ “ what combine to make large-hearted, liberal- 

minded, patriotic, God-fearing men. 40 

Intelligence, studious and inquisitive, lifts to God. 167 

Intellect, see Judgment, Perception, Memory, Sensation, Education, 

Duty. . 

“ its most common occupation and the results on character... 241 

“ when of no real value or even dangerous or mischievous_ 241-242 

“ “ only it forms the complete man. 242 

“ vicious use or abuse of. 242 

“ or curiosity, virtuous or vicious activity.. 238-242 

“ too generally the slave of ruling instinct. 241 

its study only of earthly interests and gratifications debases. 241 

“ or curiosity in general. 238-242 

“ function of, diversified by all its faculties. 238 

“ has consciousness or intuition of all its faculties or powers or 

may have. 238 

“ and of their operations. 238 

“ or curiosity, its outward exhibition. 238-239 

“ u wise, senseless or vicious discriminated. 238 

“ “ vicious, its mischief to one’s self. 239-240 

11 finds a moral even in current news. 240 

“ destiny of all is the pursuit of useful studies, knowledge and 

wisdom. 240 

“ curiosity defined. 240 

u “ universal. 240 

“ “ never to be suppressed but rightly directed. 240 

“■ intellectual faculties are in four groups or orders. 244 

“ self-conscious or intuitive. 244 

“ perceptive. 244 

(t memory of things, attributes, facts or events. 

“ analogical, discriminative, cause-knowing, logical, reasoning 244 

“ see Judgment. 


J. 


Judge George F. Comstock.*.. Y 

“ not. 94 

Judgment, sound, basis of. 241 

“ the intellect itself requires its guidance. 

•< duty and function. 248-255 

“ need of. 248-249 

11 how educated. 249 

“ parents’ duty and special office here. 249 

“ its sphere of exercise. 249 

« “ earthly wisdom special to man’s life work.. 249-250 


ic its early development in children and resulting danger of 

educating them to cheats and shams. 250 

“ sound, consequences of lack of. 251 

“ its dictates as to business . 250 

















































366 


GENERAL INDEX. 


K. 

Knowledge tfcnd practice of obedience to laws of health of body and 

mind equally necessary, why. 52 

“ of good and evil, see Parable. 

“ see Intellect, Faculty, Instincts, Business. 

L. 

Labor, see Toil, Diligence, Occupation, Avocation, Timeliness, Time.. 

Law, divine, evolution but a name for results of. 9-10 

“ “ constant and unchanging. 9-11 

“ “ conformity to or violation of, effects. 10 

“ “ universal, defined. 10 

“ “ beings and things subject to, of their creation or constitu¬ 

tion law inevitable to man’s freedom to know and obey 

or to ignore. 10 

“ divine, perpetuity and life dependent on conformity to, of exis¬ 
tence. 11 

“ divine, of survival and domination of the fittest for God’s earthly 

works and its extent. 12 

“ moral, defined. 12 

tr “ the law of limitation of instinct and its fundamental rule. 41 

“ “ of honorable business and acquisitions. 45 

“ 11 see God’s law of transmutation, World, Duty, Duties.... 

“ “ man subject to. 50 

“ “ see Limitations, Obedience, Moral law of happiness. 138 

“ “ existing implies penalty for its violation. 139 

“ “ of its conditions, constant for every constituted thing; 

and unvarying in the same conditions. 139 

“ “ God governs by, and not by caprice and miracle. 139 

“ “ there is but one same law of progression, justice and fe¬ 
licity for all mankind. 139-140 

“ “ of nature’s God, that we suffer by our own and associates’ 

faults. 246 

“ “ created things limited by the law of their constitution or 

creation. * 134 

“ civil or municipal not a real standard of morals to the multitude.. 151-2,158 

“ “ right rule of, identical with moral law. 152 

“ divine, moral, immutable. 158-160 

“ “ “ “ yet progressive, how. 159-160 

Lead us not into temptation, this prayer how made effective. 47-48 

Legislative department, its action forecloses all private judgment ex¬ 
cept for appeal, repeal or agitation for latter. 101 

Legislature, its function. 101 

Life, earthly, a training school for the hereafter. 16 

“ higher, fitting for. 242 

“ earthly, a conflict. 20 

“ “ a training school toward infinite perfection. 16 

Limitation, three fundamental rules of. 41 

“ rule of, a basis of the negative virtues. 42 

“ ,l 11 positive ** . 42 

“ see Repression, Morals, Moral law, Law, Laws. 

“ enjoyments and self-denials limited. 96 

“ penalty of disregard of. U6 

“ created things and beings limited by law of their creation.. 134 

“ of instinct, fundamental rule of. 41 

Live within your means, a principle of sound morals. 50 

Living and enjoyment, mode of, how limited. 94 

Loneliness or sense of freezing isolation, foundation of, is excessive ego¬ 
tism. 170 

“ and isolation, who never suffer from. 177 












































GENERAL INDEX. 


367 


Love of children, see Children. 

“ or offspring._54-55 

“ “ influence on the soul and home. 55 

“ of commendation or praise, fame ornoteriety. 185-190 

“ not necessarily a selfish instinct. 185 

“ its function . 186 

character of those in whom it is a ruling passion 186 
classes in whom, with or without supremacy of 

moral character, it prevails. 186-188 

resemblance of its outward manifestations to 

those of benevolence. 186 

“ parent of what vices. 186 

“ when a weak point in character. 186 

“ through it, power of bad associates and reading 186-187 

“ its influence on sublimer natures. 187 

“ never rightly a ruling passion. 187 

how it must be guided and ruled. 187 

“ “ its sincerity or insincerity. 187 

‘‘ best of all plaudits. 187 

u true test of the homage of private life. 183 

“ preferable, though formal only to vulgar rude¬ 
ness or indifference. 188 

when we must be on guard against the flatterer 188 
when it is innocent, praiseworthy and right.... 188 

“ dangerous as a ruling passion. 188 

“ conscience and judgment must sit in judgment 

over its quests and its incense. 188 

“ its quests, how tested. 188 

“ to what it may rightly aspire. 188-189 

“ “ when vain, foolish or vicious. 189 

“ its right function. 189 

“ “ its blind or perverted activity. 189 

u the right pursuit of the good opinion of others a 

duty. 189 

“ “ the ascending path to win it difficult. 189 

u “ the first sure, ascending step. 189 

“ “ when it achieves notoriety or infamy only.... 189 

“ “ its pursuit along the ascending path. 189 

11 “ when only steadfastly virtuous. 190 


M. 


Man, his soul or spirit, instinct, affections and mind subject to unchang¬ 
ing laws. 10 

“ his freedom to know or ignore these laws. 10 

* 1 his perpetuity and life and that of his psychical nature dependent 

on conformity to laws of their creation and existence. 11 

“ ignorance of them and sin and vice debase with debility, decrepi¬ 
tude, disease or death of soul or its faculties or powers. 11 

11 his ignorance itself when a vice or. sin. 14 

“ “ “ subject of penalty. 14 

“ his duty, its moral fulfillment.. 12 

“ exists for others as well as self.. 15-16 

“ compelled to serve others as well as self, see Destiny, evitable 

or inevitable. 

“ see Duties, Right, Law universal, Law moral. 

“ immortality of spirit or soul, belief in universal. 16 

11 his life a training school for the hereafter. 16 

“ depravity, in what it consists. 24 

11 redemption from depravity. 24 

“ moral strength, sources of. 25 

il 11 enfeeblement, sources of. 25 















































368 


GENERAL INDEX. 


Man, see Worship, Prayer, Spiritual or Religious instincts. 

morals, question of in relation to instincts. 26 

“ large-hearted, liberal-minded, generous, patriotic, God-fearing 

trainers of. 40 

“ highest order of. 40 

u fallibility of. 46-47 

“ must be master of himself. 50, 133 

u tf subject to the divine law of his constitution and being.. 50 

“ has no right to injure himself. 88 

“ his rights as to his living and enjoyments, how limited. 94 

“ his right to enjoy luxuries, elegance, grandeur, how earned. 94 

“ see Instincts, Faculties, Intellect, Complaints. 

t( providence for the future a duty. 95 

“ his enjoyments and self-denials have limits. 96 

“ enjoyments and self-denials, see Temperance, law of. 

“ times for enjoyments and self-denials. 96 

“ the sum of the pleasures of life consist in the right activity, hope¬ 
ful pursuit, just attainments and limited enjoyment of objects 

of instinct, affection and faculty. 137 

“ all these in moderation are proper sources of felicity. 137 

“ duty of completing each day its proper work. 96 

(t his delight in the marvelous. 120 

“ has a fate, see Fate or Destiny. 

“ cost to him of being the slave of impulse or desire. 133 

11 his destiny that of endless progression toward perfection or perdi¬ 
tion. 133—134 

“ see Depravity, Motives, Grief and Pain, Happiness, Pleasure- 

“ his multiplicity of desires evidence of the beneficence of God.... 139 

“ “ il sources of pleasure or pain, when. 138 

“ fall and restoration of. 140 

“ made for the most vigorous and incessant activities. 140-141 

“ endowed with manifold right motives to action. 140-141 

“ none of his motives to be weakened or eliminated. 141 

“ his duty to invite the right activity of each. 141 

“ his griefs, mental agony and their intensity, on what dependent. 142-144 

“ the bitter and the sweet border the whole course of human life.. 141 

“ his rebellion against the divine law of his being the constant source 

of his miseries. 141 

“ obedience to ail those laws only crowns with success, attainment 

and felicity. 141 

“ receives here only the rewards appropriate to his own and his 

family’s deeds. 143 

“ see Associates, Law, Affection, Church....... 

u designed for a mission on earth as well as Heaven. 159 

“ predestined to weal or woe by the law of his triune psychical na¬ 
ture under his own voluntary or impulsive acts. 159 

“ his very terrestrial needs compel his earthly service in a degree 

and to some diligence in it. 159 

“ a higher culture only induces a higher practice. 159 

“ his earthly instincts and their needs tend, without special culture 

of the moral and spiritual, to render the latter inert. 159 

“ hence moral and spiritual instincts need special culture. 159-160 

“ they need a Sabbath and schools of moral philosophy. 160 

“ his perfectibility. 160-162 

“ the law of his nature or of the universe not set aside by any pray¬ 
er, but attainment aided by it. 161 

“ fall of. 160 

“ his free agency, necessarily includes freedom to progress or retro¬ 
grade. 257 

“ wisdom of God, see God. 

“ must make his fitness to attain and keep the object desired or 

prayed for.. .,. 162 














































GENERAL INDEX. 


369 


Man, cannot change his suitable work, unless he fit himself for a higher, 

without loss... 162-163 

“ see Progression, Destiny, Occasion, Discipline, Association bad.. 

“ difference in activities of the great and little. 175 

“ destined for-a hereafter, indication of. 176 

“ compelled to action in some line of needed business by all the in¬ 
nate cravings of his nature. 80 

u his true rest. 176 

“ his fitness for self-government. 107 

“ alone has instincts which prompt to wonder, inquire and adore.. 120 

“ see Religious or Spiritual instincts, Moral Law. 

“ his delight in the marvelous. 120 

“ each instinct and moral, spiritual or intellectual faculty prompts 

to pursuit, attainment and enjoyment of its several objects.. 137 

“ the pleasures of his life on earth lie in the right activity, hopeful 
pursuit and attainment and limited enjoyment of objects of 

desire or aspiration. 137 

“ his proper sources of felicity. 137 

“ parables and their significance, see Parables. 

“ not free, he would have no capacity for progression. 257 

“ his many impulses to pursue, attain and enjoy, imply also as num¬ 
erous capabilities of sinning. 257 

“ his real freedom. 260 

“ cheerful, willing service brings happiness, and the reluctant or 

compulsory, or its neglect brings infelicity. 260-261 

“ cheerful, willing service in the right spirit is practical worship... 261-262 

“ how good or ill come to him. 262-263 

“ see Pleasure, Pain, Mankind. 

Mankind, are of three moral classes. 27 

“ their need and duty of self-knowledge. 34-35 

“ must in general be schooled in moral or municipal law, or ac¬ 
cept the authority of the church... 152 

“ their common destiny on earth is service. 259-261 

Marriage, founded in soul nature of the sexes. • 53 

11 is monogamous, and polygamy and celibacy or old bachelor¬ 
ism and old maidism vicious, if voluntary. 56-57 

u is life-long. 55 

“ duties, precedent, consequent and attendant. 55-56 

“ “ preliminary. 55-56 

“ the home. 56 

“ duty, of system, order and timeliness. 57 

il woman's sphere and superior duties during. 57 

“ man’s office and duty as husband. 57, 59 

il woman’s dignity as wife, mother and housekeeper. 57-58 

“ excuses of husband and wife not fulfillment of duty. 58-59 

“ is the vital time of all wooing. 58-59 

“ when and to what extent woman also assumes duty of sup¬ 
port . 59 

“ model wife. 59 

“ self-reliance, self-support and independence a duty. 59-60 

“ self-reliance and independence, abnegation of, is incipient 

degradation. 60 

** both are co-educators and trainers of the household. 61 

“ see Education, Educator, Educational institutions. 

“ each is high priest and priestess of the altars of home. 61 

“ their social duty. 61 

“ results of a false assumpton that children do their duty. 61 

“ home vigilance, influence and inspiration, most potential of 

educational influences. 62 

u the relation a confidential one. 62 

“ danger of confidential complaints elsewhere. 62 

“ need of mutual confidence and counsel. 62 


X 
















































370 


GENERAL INDEX. 


Marriage, allows no interveners nor intervention.. 4 . 62 

“ ill conduct how forborne or corrected. 62 

“ no place for suspicion, jealousy or acts that tend to beget 

them. 62 

“ right aspiration in.*. 62 

“ contention, anger, resentment, discord, hate, must not enter 

the home. 62 

“ if they cannot otherwise agree, must agree to disagree. 63 

“ persuasive measures best in case of difference or faults. 63 

11 forbearance and forgiveness special duties. 63-64 

“ true joy in. 65 

“ fixed order in. 65 

“ queenship of wife in the home. 65 

“ husband's business when not to be interfered with. 65 

“ see Husband and wife, Meekness, Parents. 

Meekness, the spirit of, never the spirit of discord. 64 

“ is the spirit of a heavenly peace. 64 

Metaphysics, advantages in the study and practice of. 145 

Midas, gift to. 180 

Mind, see Metaphysics, Psychical, Soul, Appetite, Faculty, Instinct, 

Perception, Intuition, Consciousness, Judgment. 

“ or soul, immaterial. 52 

“ but acts upon matter through material organs. 52 

“ hence knowledge of and practical obedience to laws of bodily 

organization, health and mind are equally necessary. 52 

Miracles, exceptional and confined to an age of revelation. 139 

“ do not attend upon indolent hopes or impotent impious peti¬ 
tion. 113 

“ God governs by law not by miracle. 139 

Miseducation, see Repression. 

Miserable, see Unhappiness, Spiritual, Prayer. 

Moderation, duty of. 45-53 

“ its standard varies in individuals. 49 

“ its absence a cause of poverty, pauperism and crime. 49-50 

Monsters, psychical, they who are deficient in one or more soul attri¬ 
butes, instincts or faculties. 198-199 

Moral instinct. \ ... 15-16,26 

11 “ see Conscience, Right, Duty, Justice, Motives. 

“ philosophy, foundation of. 9-12 

u u office and classification of duties. 12-15 

“ tutors. . 38 

“ studies, need of. 47 

“ nature of man, the church, home, society, business, the world, its 

training schools. 147-148 

“ philosophy, a broader and wiser study and practice of demanded. 146-151 

“ “ necessity of schools of. 155 

“ power must come from practice and discipline of faculty. 153 

“ duties, special early ordinary sphere of practice, the home and 

spheres of business. 153 

** law, see Law moral, Prayer. 

“ philosophy, its true function and office. 155 

" faculties, without special culture and practice of, animal in¬ 
stincts and their needs dominate. 159 

“ principle, its abiding, active, influential life required. 241 

11 laws vindicate alike the wisdom, justice and benevolence of the 

Creator. 263 

“ duties, based on the equality of man as to his constituent psychical 

elements, see Equality. 

“ law, defined and its extent. 12 

lt training in youth. 20 

11 and religious instincts require special training. 24 

“ " “ strength and enfeeblement, sources of.25 




















































GENERAL INDEX. 


371 


Moral classification of mankind... 27 

“ in current news. 240 

11 of accidents. 245 

Morality, office of. 25 

“ needs to be taught. 137 

“ fundamental principles of. 154-158 

“ does not demand extinction or suppression but regulation of 

instinct. 154-155 

“ a principle of, is to live within one’s means. 48 

“ law of, as to indulgence of instinct. 48-49 

Morals, fundamental law of, is temperance. 49 

“ of timeliness. 87-96 

“ need to be taught. 137 

“ see God, Instincts, Motives. 

“ to be studied in the nature and constitution of man and the re¬ 
lations in which he exists. VI11 

Motives,. 21-28 

“ definition_of. 21 

“ of two classes—to thought and to action. 21 

“ three orders—impelling, restraining and governing. 

“ three genera—terrestrial or animal, moral, spiritual, relig¬ 
ious, or intellectual. 27 

“ to sentimental reverie, valueless then. 21-22 

“ real, or potential in action, only valuable. 22 

“ of animal instincts, right or wrong . 23 

“ right, their suppression a vice or sin. 

“ none of them to be weakened or eliminated. 141 

“ man’s duty to invite the right activity of each. 141 

“ all are manifold incentives to industry and skill. 80-81 


N. 


Kational government, see Federal government. 

Neighbor and neighborhood, duty to. 97-98 

“ duties of visitation, counsel and relief. 97-98 

Neighborhood, duty to, as a locality. 97-98 

News, moral of, see Moral. 

Nirvana, see Heaven. 

N ow, see Time for action. 


O. 

Obedience to the laws of physical and psychical health, see Knowledge 

“ better than sacrifice or repentance.. 

“ pleasure and pain, gnef and mental agony, depend on obedi¬ 
ence to or violation of knowable laws. 

“ to the divine law of man’s constitution and being only crowns 

with happiness, success or attainment. 

Object of this book to lay down sound general rules and principles ap¬ 
plicable to whole field of duty. 

Obstinacy, defined, and its result. 

“ see Self-will, Waywardness... 

Occasion, the man dignifies it, it cannot dignify the unworthy. 

“ see Fortitude... 

Occupation, see Business, AvocatioD, Fear, Waywardness, Unhappiness 

Octopus human, generation of. 

Offences to God. 

Office of morality.• • •.y * 

« “ see Moral Instincts, Self-respect, Love of Commenda¬ 

tion, Love of the wonderful, Veneration, Conscience, Love 

of the sublime and beautiful. 

“ citizens entitled to, test of. 


52 

135 

137-144 

141 

VII 

214-216 

213 


40 

25 

12, 26 


104 
















































372 


GENERAL INDEX. 


Officials high, evil influence of their pride, pomp and festivities. 39 

“ all their ostentations enervate and corrupt the people and are 

perilous to republican states. 39 

Offspring, see Children. 

“ Wa nf .... ‘231-034 


Opportunities, fitness through education to seize. 19 

“ educational, how wasted. 70 

“ “• duty to seize, and be in readiness to till 

every opportunity for highest life works 71-72 

Opportunity, to be sought. 162 

“ vigilance in seeking alone can seize. 166 

11 see Business duty, Occasion... 

Order, method, system, duty of... 28 

Ordinances, Christian and religious, efficacy of. 51 


P. 

Pain, see Grief and pain.*. . 

Parable of the knowledge of good and evil. 148 

“ of the ten talents teaches duty of improvement of God's good 

gifts. 140 

Paradise, see Knowledge. . 

Parentage, its offices are the gravest of duties. 248 

Parental duty. 28-35 

“ “ educational. 67-73 

Parent’s responsibility. 19 

“ idle expectations of children. 19 

“ duty of supervision of education. . 20 

“ see Duty, Duties, Children, "Waywardness. 

“ children are God’s loans to. 32 

Parent’s duty daily to guard their health. 52 

“ see Retrospection, Character, Education. 

“ duty to train aud energize higher instincts. 72-73 

“ “ of mutual improvement. 73 

“ social duties.. 73-76 

■ l benefits of... 73-74 

“ signs of depravity of social instincts, club houses, &c . 75 

“ disrespect of those in authority to be avoided by. 74 

“ natural gradations in society. 74-75 

“ see Business duties, Educational institutions, Contention. 

“ hopes of their children, when and why vain. 146-147 

“ duty to teach practical lessons. 245 

u discharge of duty, life influence over child. 28 

“ duty to child. 28-29 

Passions, whither their excessive indulgence tends. 50 

“ and instincts, rule of abstinence f >r.. 50-51 

Patriotism, sentimental. 99 

“ dormant when. 99 

u when, in a free state, its inactivity as to ordinary duties is 

a vice. 99-100 

“ self government or free government requires its constant 

activity. 99 

u see Citizens’ duty of.. 

Peoples, blotted out of existence by reason of their unfitness for God’s 

terrestrial work. 140 

“ right to use force against, and rights of peoples to resist its 

use, see Force.. 

“ see Officials high, Self government. 

Perception and sensation distinguished. 245 

“ requires attention to objects and sensations. 246 

Perceptive faculties, observation, perception, memory and reading_ 243-254 

Plain speaking. 225 




















































GENERAL INDEX. 373 

Play, amusements, to be limited.'. 52 

Pleasure, see Pursuits, Enjoyment, Happiness, Felicity. 

u of life consist in the right activity of each instinct and faculty 
and the hopeful pursuit and limited rational enjoyment 

of their several objects..* _ 137 

“ and pain, grief and mental agony depend on obedience to or 

violation of knowable laws. 137-145 

Pledges, efficacy of. 51 

Political agitations, the life of a republic. 106 

“ “ what kind vicious and to be discouraged. 106 

Poor, why so continuing usually.. 40 

Poverty, causes of, how corrected.. 40 

“ complaint of, when vain. 138-139 

Practice, necessity of.. 38 

“ see Knowledge, Moral power. . 

Praise, see Love of commendation, Flattery. 

“ and flattery distinguished. 224 

“ men and women differ from one another more in their discrim¬ 
ination as to its source and value than their sensibility or 

insensibility to it. 224 

“ just, commendable. 225 

“ “ too much neglected in the education of children....... 225 

Prayer, necessity of regularity in.25-158-159 

“ that asks or expects a miracle is impious.. .. 161 

u no record of time when not offered. 161 

“ its nature understood even by pagans. 161 

“ see HDsop’s fable, Love of accumulation. 

*• its force generating efficacy and power with faith. 162 

“ the real aspiration of the heart only answered. 162 

(t its office is not to supplement total neglect, willful ignorance or 

vice. 162 

u providence, ruling by laws, grants prayer ordinarily through 
conformity to the law which dictates the way in which 

an answer must come. 163 

“ of a right faith only can expect an answer. 139 

“ what senseless and therefore ineffective. 165 

“ wise and proper not ineffectual. 164 

availing, just foundation of. 164 

“ the faith that achieves a grant. 164-165 

Predestination, only through universal divine law and human free will 158-161 

Preface.YI-YIII 

Press, free, essential to free men. 106 

“ duty of. 104 

“ see News, Accidents, Educational institutions. 

Priesthood, not priestcraft, perpetual. 152-153 

Principle, lack of. 151 

Progress or retrogression of natures depend on what. 139 

“ “ not the necessary result of condition of man, 

“ “ no real limit to. 172 

Providence for the future, duty of. 95 

“ prayer and true religion. 161-169 

Prudence, see Fear, Providence..• • • •. 

Psychical nature of man, subject to laws of its constitution .. 10 

“ “ and constitution of man, see Metaphysics, Soul, Mind, 

Intellect, Conscience, Religious instincts. 

Punctuality, God’s moral rule of duty and order. 93 

Pursuit and attainment. 137 

Pursuits and enjoyments, when virtuous or vicious. 49 

Q. 

Question of morals is one not of suppression or extinction of instinct 

or faculty, but of its limitation. 154-165 


















































374 


GENERAL INDEX. 


R. 

Reading, value of and how to improve by, see Education. 

Redemption from depravity. ; . 24 

u see Revelation. 

Reform of government, methods to be followed. 137 

“ see Amendment, Governments reforms of, Law’s true founda¬ 
tion in Moral law. 

Relation, see Husband and wife, Marriage, Parent, Children, Business, 

Superior, Inferior, Neighbor, Social, Citizen, God. 

Religion, true, what is not and is. 166 

“ “ its muniments and outworks. 166 

“ its instincts exist in all mankind. . 167 

“ “ perverted. 167 

“ “ how revived. 167 

Religious instincts, man alone has. 120 

“ “ see Wonderful love of, Veneration. 

“ “ function of.-. 26 

“ tutors. 38 

“ instincts and their duties. 120-124 

“ “ prompt man to wonder, inquire and worship. 120 

“ “ their true object is the Wonder-worker, God. 120-121 

“ “ see Atheism, Atheist. 

“ “ and moral instincts require special training.23-24, 36 

u or spiritual instincts. 36 

“ “ “ their training. 37 

Repentance, real, and its fruit, and the sham contrasted. 254 

“ deceptiveness of, danger of self-deceit in the criminally 

and inordinately selfish. 254 

Repression without a rational rule for it, tends to extinction of instinct 

or faculty, an impossibility. 42-43 

alone, so far as it succeeds, produces a nonentity. 43 

Republic, political agitation the life of a. 106 

“ “ what kind to be discouraged. 46 

“ see Press, Free speech, Government, Hero-worship, Reform, 

Citizen, Self-government. 

Respect of self or others, how preserved. 46 

Rest human, or the true Nirvana or Heaven. . 157-158 

Retrogression or progress, depends on what. 139 

“ not a necessary result of the condition of any people.... 140 

“ see Peoples.... 

Retrospection parent’s, as to cause of child’s misconduct. 68 

“ see Heredity law of. 

Revelation, its mode of redemption accords with nature by new mo¬ 
tives and a new force, supplemental to the natural 

force of higher instincts. 167 

see Redemption. 

Reverie, philosophy of. 22 

“ vanity of. 22 

u to be noted as indication of character. 22 

Rewards, see Man.. 

Rich, how rightly to become. 44 

“ wrongly, one may become. 44 

Rights, the existence in man of each affection, appetite, instinct, faculty, 
declares in him a corelative right and duty of right pur¬ 
suit, attainment and enjoyment of the proper object of each 141-142 
Right to enjoy them and necessaries, luxuries, elegance or grandeurs, 

to be earned. 67 

S. 

Salvation, Christ’s. 153 

Scandal and satire, pretence of honesty of, is no excuse for. 225 

“ see Gossip. 



















































GENERAL INDEX. 


375 


Scholarships, duty to found. 39 

School and academic studies fit child for what. 244 

“ but enter child on the threshold of learning 244 

“ “ while pursuing them child’s faculties may 

suft'er injury and how. 244-245 

Schools, three of self education. 243 

Science must attend practical skill. 40 

Secretiveness, the instinct to conceal. 222-226 

u an instinct of man. 222 

“ its just sphere. 222 

follies resulting from its deficiency. 223 

“ its lesson to the prying and inquisitive. 223 

u when and where virtuous. 223 

“ may be a folly, vice or crime. 223 

real wisdom or acuteness distinguished from the false... 224 

“ what classes actuated by it are to be suspected of sinister 

designs. . 224 

Seduction, success in, a sign of moral weakness in seducer and seduced 258 

Seek and ye shall find, the rule for the attainment of all good. 166 

Self, duty to. ... 45-53 

“ man must be master or ruler of. 50 

“ must be subject to the divine law. 50 

“ control and self-denial absolutely necessary when. 50-51 

“ 1 ‘ “ when and how trained. 51 

“ man has no right to injure. * . 88 

“ wrongs to. 25 

“ wrongers. 40 

Self control and self denials absolutely necessary when. 50-51 

“ li when and how trained. 51 

Self denials, limited... 96 

“ there are times for. 96 

Self education, of the self made. : f41-147 

“ unwisdom of omitting other education. 146 

Self government, duty to recognize and study the true genius of the 

people. 105 

“ a right and duty of individuals, and through^the indi¬ 
vidual, of nations. 106 

“ right, in either, is dependent on the capacity to gov¬ 
ern well. 106 

“ citizens’ fitness for. 107 

Self indulgence, how trained and consequences. 51 

“ limit of. 49 

Selfishness, defined. 252-253 

“ illustrations of selfishness respected by some. 253 

“ is not of one but of many species, as one or another selfish 

instinct dominates. 253 

Self knowledge, man’s need and duty of. 34-35 

Self love or selfishness. 251-255 

“ is not necessarily self conceit. 251 

“ defined. 251 

“ not necessarily wrong or vicious. 252 

lt not selfishness in any bad sense, but a duty. 252 

“ see Enjoyments, Pleasure, Happiness, Felicity. 

11 broader and more comprehensive includes all persons and 

things entrusted to our care. 252 

** demands just care of health, strength, soul interests and prop¬ 
erties. 252 

11 man or woman devoid of it, a monster of folly or insanity or a 

cheat. 252 

“ excessive, perverted, immoral or criminal is selfishness. 252-253 

“ true measure and limit of. 253-254 

“ virtuous or vicious. 251-254 




















































376 


GENERAL INDEX. 


Self respect, self esteem or ambition, its primary function.190, 192 

“ as vice. 190 

“ as virtue. .190, 192 

“ a virtuous ambition. 190 

** as mere conceit. 191 

“ as a vicious ambition.*. 191-193 

“ as a purest right ambition of the Christian. 191 

“ temptation through its vicious ambition. 191-192 

“ offices to be offered rather than sought. 193 

“ the world has wide realms for its right operation. 193 

11 life too short for perfect mastery of any art or science. 193 

“ a right ambition cannot build on its own genius or experi¬ 
ence alone- :. 193 

“ but must attain the garnered lore of other generations.... 193 

“ its noble aspiration. 193 

** age does not necessarily impart wisdom. 191-194 

“ when the crowding aside of age and experience is a sign of 

evil omen. 194 

“ the canvass for office by solicitation and bargain. 194 

“ by pomps, shows and parades. 

u hero-worship, its danger. 194 

“ as a false ambition. 194 

“ its insatiability as a false ambition. 194 

“ for whom no height is too high... 194 

“ true basis of governmental powers. 194 

“ peculiar glory of American governments. 194 

“ the highest function of this instinct. 194-196 

“ as a debased, if right ambition. 196 

“ the repression of this instinct or its inertia a wrong to one's 

self. 196 

“ its worthy aspiration sooner or later attains all possible good 196 

u pitiable men and women. 196 

“ decent, perishes rather than solicit. 99 

“ self esteem or ambition, virtuous or-vicious. 190-192 

“ a ruling instinct. 23 

Sense of the sublime and beautiful, see Sublime and beautiful. 

Servants and inferiors, relation and duty of. 79 

“ to obey masters and mistresses in their business 79 

“ duty of information and suggestion. 79 

“ not to seek exorbitant wages. 80 

11 duty of care to earn them. 80 

Servants and masters, interests identical how far. 80 

Sexual love, see Marriage, Celibacy, Husband and wife, Parents, Chil- 

* dren. 

“ rightly the most powerful and universal of the human in¬ 
stincts. 54 

“ constancy of. 54 

“ how perpetuated. 54 

Sexual instinct, virtuous or vicious. 149-150 

Shamelessness, easily solicits. 97 

Sin of suppressioh of God-given instincts..... 23 

“ “ excess or defect, see laws. 

Skeptic’s perverted fears. 199 

Skill, practical, alone, without science, makes man a most useful ma¬ 
chine. 40 

Social instinct and duties. 73-76 

“ its benefits. 73-74 

“ signs of depravity. 74 

“ see Society. 

Society, has its natural and inevitable gradations. 74 

“ isolation of man in. 74-75 

“ duty to seek the best. 75 























































GENERAL INDEX. 


37 T 


Society, duty of all when in it. 75 

“ restorative power of. 75 

“ in pleasant homes the most prevailing enemy of dissipations 

and temptations. 75-76 

“ see Associates, Associations. 

Solitude, society, rest and action as means of happiness. 160-17© 

“ and society, each has its uses. 170-171 

Soul, immaterial. 52 

“ abides in body and moulds expression. 237 

“ spirit, mind, affection, instinct, intellect, subject each to law of 

its constitution. 10 

“ immortality of, universal belief in.. 16 

“ see Spirits. 

Species of virtues and vices. 179-264 

Speech, see Plain speaking, Praise, Scandal, Flattery, Gossip. 

“ free, essential to free men. 106 

Spendthrift, incentive to become. 179-180' 

Spirit, see Soul, God. 

Spirits, good and bad cannot consort together. 16-17 

“ how fitted for bliss. 16 

u ardent, abuse of and its general cause. 49^ 

Spiritual nature of man, see Church. 

“ beings, evidence of. 12& 

Spiritual and religious faculties.36-120-124 

“ “ their training. 36-37 

“ “ consequences of their neglect. 37 

“ “ their tutors. 38 

u “ the church, the family, the home, their 

sole training school. 146-147 

Spirituality, exigent of time and its close economy. 124 

State governments, their constitutional powers. 108 

Statesman, duty to recognize and study the true genius of ihe people.. 105 

Sublime and beautiful, instinct of, a moral instinct. 234 

“ “ its elevating and beautifying influence. 234 

“ “ discovers beauty and sublimity in in¬ 
stincts, duties and deeds. 235* 

11 11 with the powerful and gentle instincts 

lends beauty or sublimity to face, 

feature and expression. 236 

“ •* duty, not to brutify, but to sublime and 

beautify feature and soul with 

ideal loveliness. 236-237 

“ “ when vicious, its consequences.. 238 

“ “ see Soul, Beauty, Duty. 

Success, not of the body or brute force alone. 198 

“ road to, arduous and rugged. 20 

Sunday school, see Home. 

Sundays, invaluable. 19 

Superstition, breeders of. 167 

Supreme instincts, self-respect, conscience, veneration, worship of the 

wonderful. 

Survival of the fittest, see Law of. 

System and order, see Business. . 

Systematic allotment of time, see Time. 


T. 


Talents, parable of, see Parable. 

Temperance, duty of. . 145-153 

“ first principle of, is to live within means. 48 

“ law of, as to indulgence of instinct. 48-49 1 

il is a fundamental law of morals. 49* 


















































378 


GENERAL INDEX. 


Temperance, a fundamental rule of, is not to indulge any instinct, ap¬ 
petite or laboring faculty so as to starve any other 
instinct or faculty, nor to injure self or another.... 49 

“ abuse of liquor and its general cause. 49 

11 as to many things its standard varies with the abilities 

and conditions of individuals. 49 

“ disregard of, a cause of pauperism, and crime. 49-50 

“ see Moderation. 

Temptation, see Lead us not into. 

“ its character and prompting. 48 

“ to be tempted is not sin. 48 

•“ to harbor it and seek opportunity is sin. 48 

“ and fall. 255-259 

" not limited to any condition of life. 255 

■** craves and seeks opportunity. 258 

“ duty to avoid. 258 

“ attends every man everywhere from psychical conditions 255 

“ internal all sufficient to multitudinous incitements to sin. 255 

Jt u without these internal conditions, external temp¬ 
tations are in vain. 255 

“ every perverted or unruled instinct, affection or faculty 

leads into. 255 

“ the law of Adam’s Eden is the law of to-day. 255 

“ evil known and felt only through that law and its violation 

by ourselves or our associates. 256 

u the sin of Adam and Eve the sin of their posterity, exces¬ 
sive aspiration, wrecking happiness and innocence. 256 

u every yielding to, weakens the power of resistance and 

fortifies unlawful desire. 256 

u the law of heredity carries down its power or that of re¬ 
sistance, to succeeding generations. 256 

Theory, fundamental, of book.. . YII 

Time, the basis of all improvement and achievement. 15 

“ duty of use and systematic apportionment of.16-18, 26 

“ right use of. 18 

“ value of. 20 

the basis, used, of all good. 21 

“ see Diligence, Toil. 

•“ misuse of, its criminality. 19 

•“ utmost economy of time, an imperative duty. 157 

xt alone matures aught. 166 

“ speed of its flight. 21 

•“ for action now. 21 

“ duty of economy and improvement of. 21, 15 

“ system, regularity and rules for its use, indispensible to high 

health and success. 88 

u a certain definite amount required in each avocation to earn a 

living. 89 

“ more required to earn luxuries, &c . 89 

X{ the amount required varies with occupation and aims. 89 

“ regulated amount cannot be devoted to anything without regu¬ 
larity, system, order, in home and business.. 89 

“ examples of pecuniary losses by the immorality of irregularity of 
farmer, importer, wholesaler, retailer, professional man, 

trustee, &a .- 90-91 

Timeliness, duty or morals of. . 87-96 

a time for everything.. 87 

“ consequences of disregard of law of. 87 

“ man has no right to injure himself. 88 

“ moral law of, what it demands. 91 

11 permits no postponements. 91 

M necessary to honest and honorable living. 91-92 














































GENERAL INDEX. 379 

Timeliness, is the true basis of credit and trust. 91 

duty of punctuality to appointments. 91-92 

excuses never valid nor compensatory. 92 

tardiness, mischief and evils of. 92 

“ child’s loss by at school. 93 

“ when not predicable. 94 

credit, when only to be used. . 92 

“ who unworthy of and why. 92-93 

or punctuality, a moral law or God’s law of duty. 93 

characteristic of a high civilization. 93 

low idea of duty in this regard discredits. 93 

self denial and enjoyments, times for. 96 

“ “ penalty of disregard of them.. 96 

duty to keep abreast of the work of every day. 96 

Times for the vigilance, previsions, activities, of animate beings is God- 

ordained. 91 

“ to study, know and practice them is moral, the converse is im¬ 
moral.-. 91 

Toil, necessity of. 18 

“ see Diligence. 

Training, moral in youth. 20 

Training schools, see Spiritual faculties, Moral. 

“ of children. 33-34 

il see Discipline, Practice, Instincts moral and religious 

Treachery, the inspiration and act of the secretive instinct. 225 

Treasures in Heaven, laying up of, act of moral and religious instincts 

or faculties. 279 

Trust or credit, true basis of. 91 

Tutors of spiritual or religious instincts. 38 


Unhappiness, useful industry its best antidote. 

who must be miserable. 

United States government, see Federal and National 

Usury, plea of, immoral. 

“ when justified or excused. 


V. 

Veneration, instinct of. 120 

“ its true object, God. 120-121 

u its deficiency a fountain of skepticism. 121 

Vice, generally complex’in its motives. 148-149 

Vices in higher classes of society beget' like vices and discontent in 

lower. 39 

Victories, see Firmness, Success moral path to. 

Vigilant, destiny of, see Fear, Instincts. 

Virtue positive, two fundamental rules or tests of. 42 

“ negative, one “ rule of. 42 

“ “ ever more liable to yield to temptation. 43 

“ when inane and negative. 208 

11 must contend against vice. 208 

“ every positive, brings only its own appropriate reward. 143 

“ and vice defined.134, 148, 155 

Virtues and vices, kindred. 148-153 

“ each has its correlative vice.148, 150-151 

u classification of..VII, 12-15 

“ each instinct, appetite, affection, faculty, has its correlative 

vicious or virtuous sphere of activity.*.. .148, 150-151 

W. 

Waywardness or obstinacy. 214-216 

“ see Self will . 


172 

174-175 

93 

93-94 



















































380 


GENERAL INDEX. 


Waywardness or self will, rationale of. 211 

11 see Firmness, Fortitude, Atheist. 

“ early origin and manifestation of. 214 

“ its vicious and debasing progress and final wretchedness 214-215 

“ perverts sense of duty of egotist. 214-216 

“ defined... _ 215 

“ needs to be watched and repressed from earliest infancy 215-216 

“ who train up wayward children and how. 216 

Wealth, see Instinct of accumulation. 

Wicked, see Ignorance, Waywardness, Yice, Instinct. 

Wisdom, the fear of God and his laws the beginning of, in earthly and 

celestial things. 200 

Wise, who is, the skeptic or the believer... 167 

Wonderful, love of, man's delight in..-.. 120 

“ the instinct that prompts to wonder, inquire and 

worship. 120 

“ its true and highest object is the Wonder-worker, 

God. 120-124 

il its defect inclines to atheism. 121-122 

“ evidence of existence of spiritual beings. 123 

its spiritual duties exigent of time and its closest 

“ economy. 124 

World, this, must be governed by laws which God-given intelligence 

can discover. 199-200 

“ of law is a world of danger to ignorant beings endowed 

with free will. 200 

“ hence it implies a need of the instinct of fear. 200 

Worldliness, debasement through. 25 

Work, see Diligence, Toil, Time, Timeliness, Avocation, Occupation.. 

Worship, necessity of regularity in. 25 

Wrongs to self, see self. 25 

Y 

Youth, its period a training school. 19 

“ home duties to. 19 

“ responsibility of parents, masters and others. 19 

“ see Education, discipline; Practice, children..... 

“ moral training in. 20 

“ its time invaluable. 28 

“ a duty of. 28 

“ most subject to temptations. 258 

“ its duty to most carefully avoid opportunity. 258 

11 “ guard the heart with fixed principles of right. 258 

“ safest of all muniments to temptation is a complete engross¬ 
ment in business or study. 258-259 



































INDEX TO NOTES 


Accumulation, love of, its perversion. 

“ “ Savages deficient in. 

“ results of its deficiency in otherwise virtuous civilized 

men.. 

u its inspiration in our revolutionary era, no taxation 

without representation. 

“ love of, implies that the right of property is of God.... 

“ “ heroism of the instinct. 

il see Avarice.. 

Adventurers in high places. 

Agricultural Class. 

Ambition. 

American Mechanical Industry. 

Anne, “ Good Queen,” of England. 

Anxiety, depresses and causes failure and suicide. 

Approbation, love of, see Commendation. 

Arnold’s treason. 

Artifice, see Cunning. 

Atonement and Sin, universal belief in latter and need of former. 

Avarice, mother of frauds... 

“ of kings extends slavery, and patronizes and monopolizes 

slave trade. 

“ prompts to vain pursuit of sudden wealth. 

“ “ to easy, noxious ways of gain. 


320 
318 

318 

318 

319 

321 

341 

304-305 

295 

288 

320-321 

329 

287, 325 

268 

320 

320 

321 
321 


Benevolence unselfish. 310 

“ see Clarke, Winthrops. 318 

Books and study of life. 294 

Business theory of the Quaker. 304-305 


C 


Cfesar, Julius. 

Calvert, George, Earl of Baltimore. . 

Canonchet, Chief of the Narragansetts. 

Capital and its investment.Lv..... 

Charles II. 

Chastity, best safe-guard of........ 

Christians, imperfect or incomplete application of Scripture to the here¬ 
after only. 

Church discipline. 

Clarke, Envoy of Rhode Island..... 

Combat, or separation inevitable on irreconcilable ideas of right. 

Commendation, right love of. 

Conceit, folly, danger and mischief of. 

Connecticut, its early day... 

Constitutions of American Government, obligation to obey. 


287 

295 

290-291 

305 

292 

301 

345 

310 

310 

330 

325 

327-328 

312 

309 











































382 


INDEX TO NOTES. 


Covenanters, their persecution political rather than religious. 291-292 

Craft, see Cunning. 

Creator, every instinct and faculty implanted by, has its right use and 


operation. 290 

Cromwell...273, 295, 307-308, 325 

Cunning, right use and vices of. 333 

“ example of, perhaps justifiable in war. 333 


D 


Dale, Sir Thomas, Governor of Virginia. 

Decadence of peoples in the new world. 

Deeds, worth of. 

Demons...*. 

Despotism, by unification of powers. 

“ corruption the necessary result. 

Destruction of peoples or individuals unfit for God’s work on earth.... 

Destruction, instinct of, its abuses. 

“ see Jealousy, Odium Theologicum. 

Destiny, see Necessity.. . 

Diligence, see Industry. 

Discipline, see Church. 


290 

310 

306 

307-308 

398 

272 

330-331 


E 


Economy, just results of. 296-297 

Education, in States and United States. 289 

“ father’s.290, 308-309 

Edwards, Jonathan. 285 

Elliott, the missionary to the Indians. 311 

Eltawawa, the Shawanese prophet. 337-338 

Empires, decay of. 310 

“ vicissitudes and mortality of. 330 

Employees, skillful, their moral right. 305 

Employers, duty to employee. 304 

“ rights in profits. 305 

Enterprise, grandeur of. 344 

“ see Ameriean Mechanical.. 

Equality, see Man’s Equality. 

Equanimity and its opposite. 285 

Error, historical, source and difficulty of correction. 339 

Evil, overcoming with good. 310-311 

“ spirits. 312 


F 


Farmers. 304-305 

Fatalism. 295 

“ see Destiny, Necessity, William of Orange. 

Fear, superstitious or unreasoning. 329 

“ see Panic. 

Fox, George..280, 338-339 

Franklin, Benjamin, a model for the young and poor. 345 

Freedom, real.x...... 274-275 

“ intellectual, its truths to be sought in the soul. 317 

“ “ see Toleration. 


G 


God, belief of the Aborigines in a great Creator. 267-269 

“ George Fox’s instinctive belief in. 268 

** merely instinctive belief in, liable to be perverted by other ruling 

instincts. 267 

Good works, see W orks....* 



















































INDEX TO NOTES. 


385 


Governments can rise no higher than their source. 285 

“ constitutional, obedience due to. 309 

Great, the, see Temptations of. 

Grotius. 274 


H 


Happiness... . . 275-276- 

Heredity, law of.. 302, 304 

Heroism of a dominant instinct. 321 

Honesty, the best policy.. 29$ 

Hull, General, surrender of. 339 


I 


Ideas, moral power of.. 279-280* 

Idolatry, modern. 297-298 

Immortality, Indian debased belief in. 272-273- 

Improvidence, results of. 296 

Indian, see Aborigines.. . 

“ calendar of time. 307 

“ low intelligence of.. 339 

Industry, skilled, though prompted by self-interest only, worthy of high 

honor. 288-289 

“ “ cannot be, in effect, wholly selfish.. 289 

“ effects of its discouragement. 344 

“ see American Mechanical. 

Inner light of the Quaker, its truth to be sought in the soul. 318 

Innovation, the spirit of, in a Republic, is to be specially resisted. 308 

Instincts, ruling, pervading power of. 295-325 

“ all have their innocent sphere of operation. 274 

Intellect, activity of. 284 

“ value of. 337 

“ its perversions and enslavement. 339-340 

“ under dominion of bigotry terrible for evil. 340 

“ see Mind. 

Iroquois, conceit of..... 327-328 


J 


James II. 291 

Jealousy. 331-332; 

Jesuits, power and influence of. 337 

Judges and Governors, historical warning to. 314, 327 

L 

Labor, tardy, slovenly and unskilled, no possible protection for. 305 

Law, God governs by. 269-270 

“ identical and universal everywhere. 279 

“ moral, of the world. 305 

Learning and practice. 294 

Learning and practice, see Education, La w, Practice. 

Leisler. 285 

Levellers, not visionary. 308-309 

Locke.275, 278-279, 282-28$ 

Long Parliament. 307-308 

Love of Commendation. 286-287 

Love of the wonderful, sphere and perversion of the instinct. 313-315 

' Loyola, Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits. 337 

M 

Man’s Equality.270-271, 282-283, 284, 305 

** folly and injustice. • .. 304, 305 




















































384 


INDEX TO NOTES. 


Man’s identity of instincts and faculties. 311-312 

“ use or perversion of the common inner light. 313 

Marriage, wise or instinctive, and the results. 299 

Mercantile system of England towards American Colonies. 340 

Mind, its inevitable activity. 340 

“ thinks to definite purposes or dreams vainly. 340 

Monck, General, selfishness of. 341 

Moral Truths, their recognition and origin. 278-279 

** “ power of. . 279-281 

“ practice, indispensable. 307 

“ philosophy, suggestion for extension of its teaching. 289 

N 

Napoleon, the great. 274, 325 

Necessity of occupation and toil. 334 

“ ' the mother of industry, arts, invention, Time-saving and 

Labor-saving. 334 

Norwegians. 313 

O 

Obedience, citizen’s duty of. 309 

Odium Theologicum. 331 

Oglethorpe, the Cavalier Governor of Georgia. 306 

Omnipresence of the Infinite. 313 

Onondaga warrior, heroism of. 325 

•Opportunity, readiness to seize. 273-274 

P 

Ponip QOQ 

Parris, Rev.* S..* .*.’.’ .*.’...'.. .*.’.*.' .*.326-327, 331 
Party spirit, excessive, its evils. 309 


Pennsylvania, see Penn, work houses. 

Peoples, decline and disappearance of. 310 

Persecution, settling states of new world. 291 

“ lesson of history of. 291-293 

Phillip V., of Spain.320-321,340 

• Policy, see Cunning....... 

Politicians, weak or cunning, their artifices. 339 

Pontiac... 315, 320 

Poverty from mistaken associations. 297 

Practice, active, the only real effective virtue. 307 

“ based on right principles more steadfast than that from mere 

sentiment. 307 

Prayer of a right faith precedent to achievement. 277 

Prediction or prophecy. 335-336 

Property, right of, see Yirginia, Accumulation. 

Prosperity, religion and morality its best supports. 278 

Providence, not responsible for injustice. 304-305 

Provost, Sir George, his strategy. 333 

Pusey, Caleb, his lesson to the Delawares. 311 

Q 

♦Quaker, belief of.284, 285-286 

“ colony of Pennsylvania. 310-311 

“ see Penn, Toleration, Business Theory. 

R 

Reid, Commissioner of Pennsylvania. 299* 

Religious Instinct, use and perversion of. 312-316 

Retaliation, results of. 302 

Rich, haste to be, without toil and skill ruins. 274 

Right life, or righteousness, one path to. 325 





















































INDEX TO NOTES. 


385 


s 


Satan, often a scape-goat for man’s self-originating sins and errors_ 313 

Science, its effects on practice. 287-288 

Secretiveness, instinct of, its abuses, see Cunning. 

Self-interest, a beneficent spur of effort.334-335, 344-345 

assumes the garb of friendship, generosity or religious duty 343-344 

Self-love. 295 

Self-denial, heroic. 298-299 

perverted. 298-299 

“ duty of.. 299 

Selfishness, a vice....322-323, 340-344 

tempts into falsehood and false pretences. 342-343 

debases opinion. 341 

delays settlement of French Colonies, and loses to France 

a continent. 343 

Self-respect. 290-291 

“ instinct of, its right office.325-326, 328-329 

“ its perversion. 326-328 

Sexual Instinct, its abuses, among whom most prevalent. 299-301 

Shaftesbury, Earl of. 287 

Sin, see Atonement and Sin. 

Slavery, born of avarice. 320-321 

Slave-trade, Christian monarchs monopolize. 320-321 

Social prodigality. 319-320 

Soul or Spirit, created innocent. 274 

Spirit high or spirit wise.. 305 

twer^n” \ constant dut F of . 340 

“ who unfit to be.. 340 

Suicide, criminal. 329 

Superstition defined. 316 

il an heirloom from Europe. 313 

“ 315-316 

“ origin of. 313-314 

*’ see Witchcraft, Norwegians. 

Sydney, Algernon. 285 


T 

Tecumseh.315-316, 337-338 

Temperance, duty of early lessons or practice. 298 

Temptation, of the great. 295 

Tests, Time and Habit... 308 

Theory, right, precedes right rational practice. 294-295 

Times, knowledge of by the Indians. 307 

Toleration, right to and duty of.. 271, 275 

“ earliest, by Quakers in Pennsylvania. 293 

Travelers’ Wonders. 314-315 


U 


Unchastity, effect on after married life. 301 

United States, vicissitudes within its domain. 330-331 


V 

Yane, Sir Henry. 

Yanity, folly and vices of.• 

Yices, see Panic, Conceit, Superstition, Destruction, Despotism, Jeal- 

, ousy, Avarice, Cunning, Sexual Instinct, Yanity. 

“ have a kind of wisdom. 

Vicissitudes of Empire. 

Virginia, its earliest settlers work in common fields. 

“ beginning of individual property in lands. 

Virtue, stable. 


279 

323-325 


333 

330 

289-290 

290 

307 




















































386 


INDEX TO NOTES. 


W 


War, a hot-bed of knavery and corruption.320, 323-324 

“ of 1776, its “ “ *' 327 

“ “ 1812, “ “ “ “ 327 

“ “ civil, of 1861, “ “ “ 328 

Washington, George.274, 276-277, 293 

“ warnings of. 308-310 

Witchcraft in Great Britain. 313-314 

“ “ Pennsylvania. 313 

“ “ Massachusetts. 314 

Wonderful, natural easy credence of. 314-315 

“ instinct of, its use and abuse. 311-315 

“ see Love of the Wonderful, Superstition, Norwegians, 

Travelers’ Wonders, Witchcraft. 

Work, an inevitable necessity. 301 

“ see Toil, Industry, Enterprise, Labor, Diligence. 

Works, good, earthly recompense of. 345 


In general, when the word man is used in this work, unless the context 
indicates a different sense, it is used in the sense of mankind, and includes both 
sexes. 

























OPINIONS OF 

RIGHT REV. F. D. HUNTINGTON, BISHOP OF CENTRAL NEW YORK, 
AND OTHER EMINENT MEN. 


The Right Rev. F. D. HUNTIHG-TOH, I). D., formerly Professor of Moral 
Philosophy in Harvard University, and now Bishop of the diocese of Cen¬ 
tral Hew York, after reading the work in manuscript, wrote to the author 
as follows: 

“ The special value of your book seems to be that, while recognizing and 
appreciating the results of the best studies in Ethics in relation to other depart¬ 
ments of Science, your system is distinctively Christian. We have really now 
no morals but Christian morals, and it is because in our popular scheme of edu¬ 
cation, moral obligation, moral ideas and the systematic application of moral 
truth to the common work and play of life are so largely and so deplorably left 
out, that I hope what you have carefully and clearly written will go into the 
schools and families of the land. You have worked the subject out with good 
method, in some respects original, and have made your meaning perfectly plain.” 

In a previous letter, mislaid but since found, the Right Rev. Professor and 
Bishop wrote : 

“ The labor and pains-taking that you have expended, ought not to be lost. 
You seem to me to have treated a great subject with excellent judgment and 
with a good measure of literary skill. There is both consistency in the general 
plan of the work and a fullness in the execution, which, if it errs at all, errs 
rather by excess than defect. I see nothing in the philosophy underlying the 
treatise, on the main position you have taken, inconsistent with those ethical 
systems, which, on the whole, prevail among the best students and the wisest 
teachers, and will probably stand the test of time. * * * * That it would 

be a vast, and, indeed, an almost inestimable blessing to the character and life 
o( the people of all classes, if a copy of the book could be possessed and read by 
four-fifths of the families of the land, I do not hesitate to say with confidence.” 

And referring to the introduction of a text book into the schools, the Bishop 
adds: “ From the experience I had several years ago, as Professor of Morals in 
Harvard College, I am quite sure there is no work in our language which would 
so capitally answer this purpose as yours.” 


/ 



388 OPINIONS OF EMINENT MEN. 

The Rev. J. L. BURROWS, D. D., Rector of the Church of the Evangelists, of 
Oswego, and the Hon. 0. J. HARMON, one of the foremost Christian work¬ 
ers in the cause of Reform, after reading the work in manuscript, unite i^ 
the following communication in regard to it: 

“The careful and well-considered work of Mr. William W. Green, entitled 
“ Via Moralis Vincendi, or the Origin, Basis, Psychology and Elements of Duty,” 
having been examined by us, we find that its theory and precepts are in line 
with the most advanced thought of this age of general progress; that its princi¬ 
ples are sound, and its discussions worthy of the exalted themes of its author ; 
and that, alike on account of its great essential truths and considerable literary 
merit and attractive treatment of a vital theme, it is deserving of general 
patronage, can be productive of good only, especially to the rising generation, 
and ought to have wide, general perusal.” 

The Hon. ANDREW D. WHITE, President of Cornell University, writes to 
the author, in reply to a letter, giving an outline of the work. 

“ I am much interested in your views as you unfold them, and hope you 
will publish your book. As formerly stated, we are in substantial accord. This 
is a time which seems especially to need more attention to the foundation of 
Ethics; and it is on this account that what you have written me on the subject 
has so much interested me.” 

ANDREW H. GREEN, Esq., of Syracuse, writes the author, after reading the 
work in manuscript: 

“ I think the work well worthy of publication, from the doctrines inculcated 
and the style. Your abilities as a writer are so well known to your friends, and 
to a large extent elsewhere, that it seems uncalled for and presumptuous in me 
to praise your work in the respects which are freely recognized in your writing. 
But I ought perhaps to say, that the doctrine is high and exacting and merits 
commendation, and the style has merits that are always yours.” 

























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